Chapter 1

At first there was nothing. Then there was the universe. Two protons hit each other at amazing speeds never to be achieved again. The chances were next to nothing. The results were astounding. An explosion of light and energy, enveloping the emptiness of existence. Quickly the light spread, and in its wake, atoms formed, atoms which quickly bonded together to form molecules, and from there rocks and metals formed, almost liquid in the blazing heat of creation. Some of these early planets, rough and devoid of anything other than dense atmospheres of argon and fire, crashed and collided, completely destroying some, while making others bigger. Some big enough to create gravity.

The beginning of everything ended without much of a show, slowly fading into smaller balls of light and energy. Stars, suns. These started the beginning of a new age. Heat rained down steadily on rocks trapped by these huge fireballs gravitational forces. These rocks were smoothed out by asteroids, although some still succumbed to a fate of destruction, exploding and becoming part of what is known as the Asteroid Belt now days.

There was one rock, not huge, not small, orbiting the sun. And prevailing over every x factor the universe could throw at it; this rock was at distance from the sun at which life could begin.

This planet, Earth, was nothing but volcanoes, spewing fire and deadly gases into the air like confetti. But, a miracle happened. A miracle that cannot be explained even today. Somewhere, in a steaming hot spring situated in between hell and barren wasteland, life started. It is not known how, or…. why and perhaps never will be. Some say it was an asteroid, generating enough heat to create a mini Big Bang, a new creation \on the surface of a hellish Earth. Some say it was God.

But in this hot pool of water, not boiling hot, but hot enough to support life, the first bacteria came into existence. A single celled organism incapable of anything except making more of itself. And that it did, for billions of years until it evolved into algae. Quickly all the carbon dioxide was being eaten up out of the atmosphere, Volcanoes began to die down, no longer spraying fire and poisonous gases into the air. As oxygen produced by the algae began to take control of the atmosphere, evolution kept carving its hallowed path.

Reptiles, dinosaurs, birds, mammals…

And eventually, in Europe and Africa, humanity began its million year journey to where we are now.

And in 2012, the process was doomed to begin again.

The end began with a not very rare solar occurrence. A Supernova. Star 39A exploded in brief imitation of the Big Bang, and then faded quickly away, anti-matter quickly gathering into a black hole. Astronomers were excited for all of a couple days, and most of the public never even knew it happened. Pretty much nobody cared. Well, about twenty days later, a NASA scientist picked up large amounts of radiation spreading from the center of the collapsed star. And guess where it was heading to.

You guessed it, Earth. Now everybody cared. The crackpots were out on the streets with their signs, everyone was scared, and finally people stopped caring about the Kardashians for more than two hours.

The president tried to calm the people, but with the end of the world nigh, he was just ignored. NASA set the date of the radiations arrival for (surprise) December 21rst. Everyone freaked out again, people overcrowded the churches.

And as the belt of radiation reached our galaxy, satellites and radar were inexplicable shorted out permanently. Because of this nobody ever noticed the object at the center of the huge blue-black cloud of radiation flying across the universe.

It was dark. That was all Link could tell. Very dark. He tried to move his arms, but found he was bound to his chair. He could feel ropes wrapped around his wrists, his ankles, and his belly. Link tried to see where the knots were, but was unable to make anything out in this cold dark space. Wiggling desperately, he could find no purchase. His wrists grew red and irritated. The Hyrulian stopped. Link tried to peer into the blackness surrounding him, finding nothing but empty space filled with darkness.

"Hello?" he called out softly, then silenced himself. He listened for the sounds of shuffling feet, for the incoherent moaning he had grown accustomed too after all these months.

Hearing neither, he breathed out heavily, trying to reduce strain on his bound torso. The weight against his belly reduced, and he tried to slip underneath it. It tightened quite suddenly, cutting off his breath. Quickly sitting back up, Link realized he was bound in a slipknot. The more he struggled, the less he could breathe.

The Hyrulian relaxed his entire body, as not to inadvertently constrict himself with his movements in his chair. Link decided he was stuck, and he could only wait it out, trying to remember what had happened.

His memory was fuzzy, and he could barely pick anything out of the haze in his mind. All that he could make sense of was the City. He did not remember what it was called, where it was, or why he had been there. Link only knew he had spent the last few months there. Doing what?

Suddenly light flooded the room.

Instantly, Link's head began to throb with a headache, the light hurt is eyes. He screwed his slanted eyes shut, trying to block it out. He noticed he could feel a pulse on his skull, it felt like swelling. The Hyrulian knew he could not reach up with his hand and figure out what it was, and resisted the urge to.

He kept his eyes closed for a long time, and then slowly opened them, the light hitting his eyes hurt his brain, but Link needed to know what was going on, and where he was.

The room he was in was bleak, gray and bland except for a green cap on the floor. Link recognized it as his own, and longed for it to be on his head, it was a symbol of normalcy, you could say. Link turned his head left and right, he saw one door in the wall, it was metallic and had no door knob. Instead there was an empty hole. Thru it, the Hyrulian could see a wooden wall, it looked like a hallway. Otherwise the room was featureless.

Looking down at the chair he was bound in, Link observed his back was to a wall, and the chair was bolted to it firmly. He was tied with what looked like nylon rope; it was blue and looked new. The Hyrulian knew there would be no chewing through that. His had were handcuffed to the chair as well, something he failed to notice earlier. Because of this, the only thing he could really move was his head.

Link again decided that he was stuck, and gave up looking for a way out. Instead he observed the only furniture in the room other than his own. It was a high backed wooden chair. It was about five feet away from him, directly in front of him. It was empty. The light came from several fluorescents fixed to the ceiling, blinding white to look at. While looking at the lights, he noticed an intercom. He recognized it as an intercom, despite his medieval upbringing, but from where, he did not remember.

For several minutes nothing happened. Then a voice filled the room, startling Link.

"Hello there my friend" was all it said at first. Then there was a click, coming from the intercom.

Link knew it was turn to speak, but he did not want to. The Hyrulian was scared, which was a rare occurrence. Tied to this chair, and no signs of any of his weapons, he was defenseless.

"Are you going to speak? Or shall I put you in the dark again?" asked the voice, coming from the intercom.

Suddenly, Link wanted nothing more to be plunged into the darkness; he could pretend he had just been sleeping. But no, his red wrists told him no, he was very awake.

"Who are you?" he asked, his voice dry.

Laughter fell from the ceiling speaker. "Very forward aren't you? That is an answer for later my friend. Now, do you know why you are here?"

"Why are you doing this?" asked Link "What have I done?" no more than ever feeling bound to this chair. He yearned for freedom.

The voice was stern "That is what I am asking you. Do you know why you are here?" A pause. "Do you remember?"

Link didn't speak for a moment.

"No" he said, not sure what he was supposed to be remembering.

"Are you sure? Do you remember anything at all?" the voice asked, making it clear that this was an important question. The intercom clicked again.

Link spoke hesitantly. "I…I don't know"

A sound was made as the microphone the voice was speaking into was covered, and a very muffled conversation took place somewhere else in the building. Link could not pick anything out over the intercom's speaker, and suddenly he knew there was more than just one captor holding him here.

Suddenly, a different voice, one he knew was a woman's spoke.

"Link, do you remember!" the she-voice asked loudly. "Do you? Tell us now!"

"No! No! I don't!" replied Link quickly, thoughts racing thru his mind. He knew that voice, but from where? The name slipped through his mind quickly before he could grasp it.

Another muffled conversation.

The man voice was back. "Many things have happened in the last few months, many things"

Another pause for another conversation behind a covered microphone.

"We think it is best" it was the woman again "That you know why we are going to kill you" Link's heart skipped a beat, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. He wanted out, now. "Or maybe, you could explain-"

The man voice came back on, cutting the woman off "We think you might be able to explain yourself, lord knows we three are all that are left on this world" it was said hastily, obviously with some pain.

Link didn't know where that pain came from, but it sounded deep, emotional, like it had not had time to fade away.

"We are going to tell you everything that has happened, and if your memory starts to clear, please tell. It will be hard for us; it's been a long six months"

The woman's voice. "And we are all that's left"

A/N: This is for a contest you should check out. Two of its judges are Tune4Toons and Foxpilot.

Other than that, this was a quick first chapter, written just to get some momentum going. I do hope it's good though (this is my first contest, but that doesn't mean I don't intend to win it *evil face*).

Thanks T4T for getting me involved in this and for being generally awesome!