A Note from the Author: I'd rather finish Fallen Matriarch before starting this, but I wanted to get the first chapter of my favorite Zelda game's novelization in on Halloween--Twilight Princess can try all it wants, but Majora's Mask will always be king when it comes to a Zelda Halloween. So this is the first chapter of the first story of Dark Mind's spin-off series, Shadow Apocalypse--a darker, more-psychological-focused novelization of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, my favorite out of all the Zelda games. I originally wasn't going to do it, but as I've been nearing the completion of the final chapter in the Ocarina of Time novelization, I've been getting numerous requests for a Majora's Mask spin-off. So, as my Halloween gift to all of you, I'm going to go through with it. I won't be doing another chapter until Fallen Matriarch is said and done, but here's a great tribute to the darkest of holidays.

And for those of you who haven't read my Ocarina of Time novelization, I highly encourage you to do so. You can pick off at your favorite sage (there's one story for each, minus Raaru): Phantom Destiny (Saria), Dragon's Duet (Darunia), Arctic Succession (Ruto), Rising Puppetmaster (Impa), and Fallen Matriarch (Nabooru). For reference, I call that the "Dark Mind" series.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Part I of Sovereign Swamped, and Happy Halloween! Please review when you finish reading!

Zelda stuff (c) Nintendo, sometimes Capcom
Original stuff (c) Me

Part I ~ The Client

The autumn morning was first recognized by a Kargarok perched in a dying, gnarled tree, grey with age. The enormous tree had in years past been glorious, with thousands of leaves green year-round, and brown bark richer than any other plant's. But a year ago, it continued to tower over the forest with godly eyes, until a boy dressed only in green stepped into the tree and battled a giant arachnid queen. The boy left victorious, but the queen took the tree's life in the process. The grand God of Earth, the Deku Tree, died that night.

Now, a year later, his corpse continues to watch over us like a skeleton watching from beneath the grave. Without its guardian, strange things, both wonderful and horrifying, have begun to happen to the Lost Woods. Everybody whispers it under their breath: The woods are changing. "Something new has entered the forest," one will mutter, shivering and looking around. Indeed, the forest was no longer as bright and cheerful as it used to be. A shadow seemed to hang over it, and with it many a mystery made itself known. Animals began to go missing. The leaves of trees died earlier than usual, and the mornings have been colder than ever before. Wolfos have gained a newfound confidence, and when they attack they do in such ferocity that it is not uncommon these days to travel in the forest with some sort of weapon. At least once a month, on my walks in the woods I've heard horrific screams of some large animal in the distance being torn apart. Whether it was by Wolfos or by something more sinister, I do not know. Stalfos, living skeletons that hide in the woods in shame of their pasts, talk quietly about a darkness they believe now exists. Something lingers in the air, though nobody knows what it is.

The Lost Woods, feared among everybody outside it but cherished by all those who lived inside it, was home to countless plants and animals. Once ruled by the Deku Tree, it was otherwise a confederacy between three sovereign races: the Dekus, the Skull Kids, and the children of the Deku Tree, the Kokiri. The Kokiri were forest spirits and nothing less, but rather than don their tiny spirit bodies (known as Koroks, for those who didn't know), they decided to keep the form of Hylian children, so that they could frolic and play for as long as they lived.

But there was one Kokiri who did not frolic.

My name is Link. I am an outcast; for all my life I thought myself a Kokiri, but I now know myself to be Hylian. Or was it all a dream? I traveled seven years into the future, fighting in a campaign to end the rule of a tyrannical Gerudo king that in the near-present had taken over Hyrule's crown. But when it all ended, Nayru, Goddess of Time, took me back to the present, albeit with Ganondorf still locked away. Of course, nobody could understand why I was cheering--the Deku Tree was dead and nobody could remember Ganondorf, so I was joyous while everybody else was glum. The only one who remembered was Navi, my fairy companion. She vanished one day, though, and since then I've been looking for her non-stop.

It was a year and two months since that fateful August. I never got a new fairy in all that time, waiting loyally for Navi to return. Now it was the end of October—Halloween morning, in fact—and I had almost given up hope. As I rose drearily from my bed in Kokiri Forest, I looked out the window. It was something I had gotten into the habit of doing, checking to see if Navi was outside. When she wasn't there, I finally came to a conclusion. "I'm done waiting," I stated to nobody. "Navi, I'm coming to find you."

-

Last year I got a new shield for Christmas: a smaller model of the Hylian Shield called the Hero's Shield. I had never touched it since January; now, for the first time, I slung it around my head and let it hang behind my back, just like my shields last year. I picked up my Kokiri Sword, placed it in its sheath, and hooked up a bag of food to my belt. I didn't know if I'd have to spend the night in the forest, so I felt it better to be prepared. With the Lost Woods as it was these days, who knew what to expect? I wasn't even sure if I'd come back alive. I took a moment to pray to Farore, the Goddess of Courage and Secrets who (as I found out six years in the future) watched over me and protected me when I needed it.

But there was somebody else who I needed to talk to. Since coming back from the future, I've progressed my relationship with Saria. She knows I'm a Hylian now, but just like in the future she doesn't care. We loved each other deeply; if this was my last time in the forest, I couldn't leave without saying good-bye.

Saria's house was right next to mine: the stump of a massive tree, hollowed to form a quaint cottage. The dark overcast in the sky made the morning almost look like night, so Saria's windows were lit up by the fireplace in her house. The warm light was a pleasant welcome as I stepped inside. Saria was dressed in a pine green turtleneck covered with a pure green sweater, along with a Kokiri Tunic bottom lengthened for colder weather. She wore dark green boots, and a white scarf around her neck. Her vivid green hair hung to her neck, graced with a pine green hairband just behind her pointy ears. The sight of me with my shield surprised her, and she set an oatmeal-filled spoon down slowly, observing me with great scrutiny. "Link, what's the matter?" she asked rather worriedly.

I stood beside her, looking deep into her green eyes with my own concern. "I can't wait any more, Saria. I have to find her," I whispered.

"You're leaving?" The Sage of Forest got to her feet. "When shall you return?"

"I... I'm not sure if I'll come back. The forest isn't what it used to be. I... I might get lost in it, or eaten, or..." There was a vicious roar outside, perhaps less than half a mile away. It was followed almost immediately by a sharp shriek, like a horse getting devoured. The scream of the animal was short, but echoed throughout the forest with morbid sustenance. I gulped. "Or worse..."

Saria took my hand. Her hand was warm and soft, and I savored the soothing feeling of her hand touching mine. "Link," she started nervously, concern covering her face.

I couldn't look her in the eye. "I wanted to say good-bye, in case I don't return. You understand, don't you? I... I just can't live without her!"

She looked deep into my eyes, until she was satisfied that I wasn't going to change my mind. "In that case, I'm going with you." I opened my mouth to object, but she covered it with a finger. "You won't survive if you go into the Lost Woods alone, especially without a fairy. You'll need a second pair of eyes, and a fairy to light your way." She smiled up at her red fairy. "Tuto and I will go with you, Link."

-

Almost no light penetrated the warped trees of the Lost Woods. Even though it was daytime, the cloudy sky and the dense canopy made the forest floor no brighter than early morning had been. A light fog hung over the ground, hiding the distance from view. Saria and I sat atop Epona—not the proud mare from the future, but the young, energetic colt from the present. Malon had great sympathy for my cause, and so she allowed me to borrow Epona for the journey. We prodded slowly through the mists, searching in every direction with our eyes for the small blue glow that I had come to love. Every now and then I'd call out for her, but my words were never answered.

A cold autumn breeze wound its way through the browning leaves, just barely holding on to their trees, who wanted nothing more than to save themselves at the disposal of those who for a year were considered nothing less than family. The leaves that lost their grip were blown away, never to be seen again under countless other leaves collecting under the grey, formless fog. A squirrel scurried down from a tree, circled around Epona's feet, and made off into the mist.

Then we came to the body. A deer's carcass lay in a clearing in the trees, just enough light shining through to highlight its empty eyes and hollow skull. Saria gasped and shielded her eyes, and I stared down at it with great pity. It was one of the killings—the way it was ripped open, we could tell it wasn't a Wolfos. Something else killed the creature; from the look of the body, it was recent too, probably what we heard that morning. Cautiously, I glanced around the surrounding forest. What monster did it hide from us?

Suddenly, Epona reeled into the air in great terror, knocking Saria, Tuto (in Saria's shirt), and I off and onto the ground opposite the corpse. The first thing to hit the ground was our heads, and I instantly fell unconscious. Just before I was knocked out, I heard the tinkling of a fairy's wings not too far away.

-

When I regained conscious I heard a voice. "Let me play with that!" a high girl's voice whined. I continued to lay on the ground, listening.

"Just wait your turn, Sis," snapped a high-pitched boy's voice.

"But it isn't fair!"

"It's completely fair! Grow up, will you? Besides, it isn't your's anyway! The ocarina belongs to that girl."

I opened my eyes. Not too far in front of me, with all their backs turned, fluttered two fairies (one yellow, one purple) and a short imp dressed in red straw—a Skull Kid, the hollow body of a Hylian child who got lost in the woods and was stripped of their soul by the Deku Tree as punishment for trespassing. It held Saria's ocarina, and was joyfully playing it. Saria, I saw, lay on the ground in front of him, still unconscious.

"Wasn't that a great trick?" the Skull Kid cackled, his voice mischievous and crude. "Stupid horse."

"Maybe you should give that back now," the purple fairy (the boy) suggested.

"Heck no!" snapped the Skull Kid. "This baby's mine now!"

I couldn't let that happen. Slowly, quietly, I rose from the ground and pulled my sword out of its sheath. I approached the Skull Kid, making sure not to step on a stick, when suddenly his fairies spotted me and sounded the alarm. The Skull Kid spun around, and for the first time I saw a face more treacherous and morbid than any I had ever witnessed. Blood dripped from the spikes protruding from its sides, and its bright yellow eyes instantly connected with my soul and seemed to twist it to its own pleasure. It took me a moment to realize the face was actually a mask, one so detailed I thought it was really alive. The shock at the sight of the mask left me vulnerable, and the Skull Kid had no intention of giving back his spoils. Before I could stop him, he seized Saria's body and jumped onto Epona's back with such agility and speed unnatural for the typically clumsy and slow-going Skull Kid. Skillfully screeching to Epona in a language I had never heard before (though it sounded eerily like a horse's), he succeeded in sending Epona into a gallop. I had only enough time to grab onto her leg. He wasn't going to get away with Saria, not if I could help it.

Though I tried as best I could to hold on, it was no use. As we approached a hollowed tree trunk I lost my grip on Epona's leg and scraped to a halt on the ground. Skull Kid rode off into the tree trunk and vanished into darkness. Needless to say, I hoistered myself off the ground and gave chase. "Thank goodness I brought my sword and shield," I mumbled to myself.

I did not expect there to be a giant pit inside the dark trunk. I ran right until I hit the edge, realizing my mistake and mentally kicking myself for it. It was too late, though, and I felt my vertigo go wild as all of gravity reached out and pulled me over the cliff. There was nothing I could do but fall, fall for what felt like miles. I have no idea how much time passed, but the pitch darkness of it all seemed to bring colors before my eyes, the sort of colors that squiggle around whenever one has their eyes closed and stares at the insides of their eyelids.

Eventually, though, I landed safely (though it was miraculous that I did so) on a bouncy flower that absorbed the impact. The flower was one I had never seen before with my own eyes, though I recognized it as being from Deku Country to the southeast in the Lost Woods. What it was doing here, at the bottom of what was surely a cave, I could not understand. The giant flower was almost big enough for me to fall into its large hole in the center—it was, if I wasn't mistaken, a Deku Flower, lit up by the dimmest of lights.

That all changed, though, when two blaring white lights flared on in front of me. They were at an angle, and focused with great intensity on a dark figure floating above the ground. "Wh-Who are you?" I asked, unable to see who it was but sure that, if it was the "Skull Kid," that this was no ordinary person.

"What's it to you?" the shadow answered, his voice reminiscent of the Skull Kid's but ten times more unnatural. It spoke not from a mouth, but from a soul.

"Are you..." I coughed grass out of my mouth. "Are you what's been eating all the animals?"

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. I need blood to survive. Isn't that enough for you?"

As my eyes adjusted, I found that he was indeed the Skull Kid—mask and everything—floating in the air as if on an invisible couch. "I demand to know who you are!"

"...you'll know soon enough." The Skull Kid treated me as if I was some play thing, not taking any of my answers seriously.

"And why is that!?" I was really getting angry with this guy.

"What right do you have to know such confidential things? You seem to be just a little forest boy, and forest boys have no right to stand up to me."

"I'm the Hero of Time!" I snapped. "I bear Farore's blessing!"

That perked up the Skull Kid's interest. "Farore? That sniveling girl who tells everybody's secrets but never her own? The one with the big puffy hairdo and that obnoxious junk of a Book of Secrets? The one who claims courage, yet only has the gall to whisk people away with her spell of Wind? Laughable! Outrageous! So you are brave; yet you are not wise, and not powerful, so you have no right to speak with your superior!"

That was it. He'd gone too far. Not even Ganondorf could mock the goddesses; it was downright blasphamy! And as if that wasn't enough, I had just boosted the kid's ego! "You can't say that!" I roared. "You'll be punished for—"

"No, I think you are the one who shall be punished. You've pronounced yourself as an enemy, 'Boy of Farore,' and for that I shall degrade you to a point of no return." I fell back; somehow, that was a threat I felt he could carry out. "But before I turn you into a lump of coal, or worse, perhaps you would like to ask a question? Farore's blood is in your veins—I cannot disregard her need for information."

That was an odd request. But I thought and thought, until I came up with the most important question of them all. "What did you do with Saria and Epona?" I demanded, seeing as they weren't present.

"I've...disposed myself of them. That girl, she's a pain in the neck to carry. And the horse, she doesn't do as she's told! I did you a favor by getting rid of them...don't you think?" Skull Kid stared at me—or at least his mask did—and I suddenly felt trapped, realizing there was nowhere to hide in this small cave.

"No!" I growled, mustering up my last bit of courage. "You didn't kill them, did you!? You didn't kill them!?"

"No more questions..." replied the Skull Kid. He began to rattle his head left and right like a shaker, back-and-forth, back-and-forth, in such a hypnotic manner that my eyes began to involuntarily follow his mask's. They dug deep into my soul, and in the shaking, the rattling, all of which seemed to turn into sound, the eyes seemed to release something. There was a "click," and suddenly everything fell into darkness.

-

In the eternal darkness, the rattling continued in sound. It echoed throughout the universe, banging off of my body and soul, pounding my bones and denting my very brain. It drove me insane. I screamed, I clawed, and I ran, but no matter where I fled in that dark abyss, it always followed. "GO AWAY!" I screamed, clutching my head in pain as I ran. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"Die, Link... Die..." answered the Skull Kid's demonic voice from nowhere in particular, his voice a whisper.

"STOP!" I pleaded. I ran and ran, until something appeared in the darkness before me. Saria's corpse lay on whatever surface I stood upon, her face blown out and hollow just like the deer's. I stared at it in horror, until another figure entered the strange altered reality. It was a Mad Scrub, one of the autumn leaved-Deku Scrubs that went rogue and lived by themselves in the Tarm Ruins. It stood on the other side of Saria, blood dripping from its nozzle-like snout. For the slightest moment we made eye contact, until without warning it launched forward into the air and landed on top of me.

It slammed its snout over my face and began sucking inward like a vacuum. Instantly my screams became soundless, absorbed by the nozzle, and even though I struggled I could not get the Mad Scrub off of me. It sucked and sucked, until I began to feel my very skin beginning to peel away. With a great ripping sound that lasted only for a second before being absorbed, the skin covering my face tore off my head and swirled into the swirling vortex in front of me. Then, pain burning all over my head, my blood and saliva followed in a whirling spiral, vanishing into darkness in front of me.

All of the sudden, though, there was a bright green light, and before I knew it, I was face-to-face with the Skull Kid once more. I collapsed to the cavern floor, shivering and sobbing in burning pain. In front of me, as it turned out, was a shallow pool of water. It soon dawned on me, looking into the water, that rather than my (surely now hideous) reflection, a Deku Scrub stared at me in the dark gloom. It only took me a few more seconds to realize, though, that the gloomy, miserable face staring back at me in the water was my face. I flung my hands to my cheeks, but instead of a soft, smooth layer of skin, my hands hit a hard, coarse surface that felt an awful lot like bark. I screamed; it came out a pathetic squeak.

The Skull Kid leaned forward, his mask's menacing eyes now graced with a touch of intrigue. "Well, this is a new look for you," he exclaimed. "It seems that hag may have had a bit of strength after all! She turned you into a Deku!" He roared in amusement. "You really do look lame now! It fits you, I think! I was going to give you a slow, burning, painful death, but I suppose this is better, Deku boy!" I tried to answer something back, but couldn't move my now-wooden lips, and could only muster another squeak. "I love it!" Skull Kid clapped. "I really must be going now, though. I have business elsewhere. When you die, don't die by fire! Ho ho ho!"

Still jiggling in mirth, the Skull Kid began to float backwards towards a wall of the cave. The wall opened up behind him, and he continued to float through it, his two fairies in tow. A sudden burst of anger overcame me, and in my glowing Deku eyes all I could think of was revenge. I threw myself forward, struggling as best I could on my stubby wooden legs to catch up to the demon. Before I could reach him, though, the female fairy flew at me and started ramming my head, beating me backwards with a strength I didn't know existed in a fairy.

Eventually, my rage boiled back down into sorrow, and I slinked back, ashamed at my appearance and betrayed by my own goddess. The fairy laughed at me in glee. "How's it feel to be small, 'Hero of Time?'" she mocked.

Suddenly, an urgent call came from the male fairy, who had remained with Skull Kid. "Sis!" he cried. The female fairy only had enough time to spin around before the wall slammed shut, leaving her alone with me.

"Tael!" the female fairy screamed. "No!" She flew to the wall and banged on it in desperation. "Skull Kid, come back! Come baaaaaaack!" Shock overcame her, and she fluttered to the floor in exasperation.

I hated her with a passion, but to see that little fairy cry broke my heart. I was a hero; like it or not, it was my duty to help those in need. "Is..." I jumped in shock hearing my own voice come out of the nozzle I had for a mouth. This would take some getting used to. "Is there anything I can do?" I squeaked, standing above the fairy.

The fairy jumped into the air and growled at me. "Anything you can do!? You made me lose my brother, you... You..." She looked away. "Aw, who am I kidding? Skull Kid made me lose him. You just got along for the ride...idiot." She twirled around and stared me in the eye. "So I suppose there is something you can do!" she fumed. "This here's a door. Open it!"

"O-Okay..." I looked askance and started searching for a way to open the door.

"Geez, what are ya, stupid too!? Here's the switch!" The fairy hovered over a small switch in the ground. I pressed it, and the wall flung open, revealing a dimly-lit tunnel ahead of us.

"Th-There you go... Um..."

"Tatl! Don't you forget it!" Without a thank you, Tatl darted into the tunnel and around a corner, leaving me to my own accordance. It wasn't for long, though, because she returned within a minute. "...okay, so, I was thinking, maybe you and I should, well, you know, team up. Or something." I frowned at her. "Okay, so maybe we did more bad onto you than you would have liked. But without me, you won't have the slightest clue where you're going! I'll have you know, this is a big cave!"

"Well if I'm so dumb, what do you need me for?" I retorted.

"Look at me, bozo. I'm itty-bitty! I can't do anything but talk and spit, and you DON'T want to see me spit. I need you to help me open doors and stuff."

I thought for a moment. "Well..." Navi was infinitely better than this creep of a fairy; but in my last adventure, I wouldn't have survived without a fairy companion. I had no idea what I was getting myself into here—perhaps a truce would benefit me in the end. "Okay. Truce?"

"...truce."

-

The tunnel proved to be long and deep, opening up into great caverns at times while narrowing itself into little crawl spaces at others. The entire time, a faint light illuminated the tunnel just enough so that I could see where my little Deku body was taking me. The only things driving me on were Saria, Epona, and the small hope that somehow, wherever I was going, I'd be able to find a way to change myself back.

Then, all of the sudden, I pulled a door open and discovered a new tunnel, its ceiling illuminated by what appeared to be the stars of the night sky, yet only a few yards away from my head. "Where are we?" I asked, spellbound by the beauty of the ersatz heavens.

"You don't want to know, kid," Tatl grumbled. "Let me just say you're a long way from home. C'mon."

I followed Tatl through the starlit tunnel, awing at the glow of so many small lights, head staring at the "sky" above, until the whole world seemed to spin around me. Walls became floors, floors became ceilings, everything seemed to change, until I found myself walking through an entire sky, graced with no walls or doors but only the empty infinity of outer space. Far away, too far to be touched, stars glittered and sparkled in such a majesty that I felt dwarfed in their presence, a mere peasant standing before the gods. Though it felt like I stood on solid ground, I could see an infinite number of miles beneath me, and stopping to reach down I felt my hands sink lower than where my feet stood.

The door I had entered from seemed non-existent now, eons away, and I wondered where it was Tatl was leading me as we strolled through the stars. Eventually, though, I saw a particular star straight in front of me getting bigger and bigger. Finally, I stood right in front of it: another door, glowing a light blue like the stars. A great clock was painted on its stone surface, and a shiver went up my spine as I looked upon it. "Take a deep breath before opening this door," Tatl instructed. "If you don't take your air with you, you may lose it altogether."

Despite the odd reasoning behind the task, I was so hypnotized that I willingly took as deep a breath as I could. The door opened gently, but as soon as it was open we were sucked in side, not much different from the vortex of the Mad Scrub. Tatl and I crash landed onto a cold, stone floor, and the majestic doors slammed shut behind us.

"I do believe you deserve a welcome."

I jumped to my feet and looked around. An eerie green light glowed through what appeared to be the inside of a sort of contraption. A small underground river flowed past a waterwheel, which seemed to churn the motion of many metal gears above our heads. Around the waterwheel, a set of wooden stairs beckoned us. The voice seemed to come somewhere from above. I climbed the steps obediently, Tatl hiding underneath my hat as I did.

Nobody was there at the top. The gears continued to climb via a shaft through the center of the landing, but on the otherside was a giant double door with natural sunlight wafting through. "Finally!" I exclaimed, running towards the doors. Just before I could push them, though, the voice came again.

"I really wouldn't do that, if I were you. You may want to stop and think for a moment."

I spun around. A tall man towered above me at the top of the stairs, staring at me through squinted eyes and smiling with a grin so crooked it seemed maniacal and criminal. Most of the man's body was encased in shadows, masking anything below his violet jacket. The man did not say anything more, but merely grinned at me, so disarmingly that I couldn't help but be suspicious.

"W-Who are you?" I demanded, backing away. The overly pleasant face that glowed in the darkness seemed vaguely familiar, but...

"Do you not remember me? Perhaps your mind has been lost for the mad," the man laughed. His laugh was so jaunt and light-hearted that it made my wooden stomach squirm. "I am the Happy Mask Salesman, from Hyrule Town Market. You stopped by my shop one day, though I recall you being a bit...taller." The Happy Mask Salesman!? All the way in the middle of nowhere? "Your name was...Link, correct?"

Actually, if I remembered the incident correctly, I never gave him my name. EVER. "How did you know?" I squeaked.

"I've been following you," the mysterious man grinned, as if it were all some game. He even laughed again. "Ever since I saw you dragging on that horse. You see, the imp you encountered..."

"Skull Kid?"

"...yes, him. He has something of mine. Something I must have dearly. Do you know what it is?"

I shook my head. The darkness around the salesman seemed to grow denser. "I have a feeling you'll tell me."

"That mask... The one he so joyously wears on his head. It belongs to me, and I need it back." He put strong emphasis on those last few words. Almost a sort of growl.

"So why did you follow me?"

"...do you know where you are?"

"I... Well, no." I looked around. The green glow of the cave did nothing to indicate my location. It was somewhere I had never been before, somewhere foreign. Holodrum, perhaps?

"You are in a world vastly unlike your own," he explained, stepping forward. I, in turn, took a step back. "This cave is the link between our world and another. This new world is far different from our own. It feasts off of people's memories and dreams, and time behaves like an author, writing out a rough draft before going back and editing details. A place where spirits from one world intermingle and possess the bodies of another. This world, Termina, shouldn't exist; the goddesses destroyed it ages ago before even the Civil War of Hyrule. But somebody brought it back."

I leaned forward. "Who?"

"...a worse monster than any ever perceived of in any of the four kingdoms. Its existence, I have learned through my studies, is linked to masks." His grin seemed to grow even wider, and was directed towards me in an almost malevolent passion. "That is why I invest so much time in the collection of masks—they guard the door to this abandoned world. The world where death and tragedy is inevitable, and where people have lost so much faith in hope that they wither in the darkness of their own gazes. It is a doomed country, a pitiful country; that is why the gods so wanted it gone. Not out of hatred, but out of pity. They wanted the suffering to end."

"Then... Why would anybody bring it back?"

"If you truly wish to step into Termina, shed your Hylian shell, and walk amongst the spirits and dreams, then you must find out on your own. Have faith... Believe." The Happy Mask Salesman approached me, but this time I didn't try to escape. He stood a mere yard away from me, high above my tiny Deku head, and laughed. He then bent down, so that his head hung just above my ear, and whispered, "I can change you back."

"What?" I gasped. "How!?"

"Bring me a music maker; that is all I need," the Happy Mask Salesman replied, standing up straight. "But before you leave, I must warn you: I expect compensation."

"What... What do you want?"

Again, the Salesman whispered. "...his mask." What little hope I had drained. The Skull Kid was immensely powerful—how was I supposed to get ahold of his mask!? "I leave Termina in three days," the Salesman warned.

"Deal!" I exclaimed, before I really had time to weigh things over.

"Perfect," the salesman chuckled, sinking back into the darkness. "I shall wait for you here. Happy searching, Link."

I stumbled around and put my hands on the doors. "...yeah, same to you..." With a great shove, I pushed them open and stepped outside.

To my astonishment, I stepped straight into a city. It was a city, though, that I had never dreamed of. The buildings towered into the sky, scraping at the heavens, and reflecting the sky and clouds as if made of glass or metal—maybe even both! The stone roads were torn down the middle by inky black tar that had cooled into a strange solid surface. Bizarre machines shaped like animals paced back and forth atop the tar, never daring to step on the stone, but with such speed that I could hardly keep an eye on a single one. People sat inside the machines, laughing and socializing; but these people didn't have pointy ears like Hylians.

Looking behind me, the building I had stepped out of was one of those tower things, half as tall as a mountain from the looks of it. A massive disc covered each of the four sides of the building near the top, with great swinging arms that moved in such fluidity that they seemed almost alive. I had been inside a clock tower at a scale I had never seen before—if the buildings in this city were enormous, this one dwarfed even them!

"Excuse me, sir," a man's voice addressed from behind me. I turned away from the tower, only to find one of those mechanical animals (this one particularly long) stopped right in front of me, a man with a head like a purple goat peeking out from the side near the end. "Are you new around these parts? I don't think we've indexed you yet. Where are your parents?"

"N-Not around," I stammered. What was I supposed to say?

"...oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Well, what's your name, then?"

"Link... I've never been here..."

"Just 'Link?'"

"Y-Yeah, just 'Link.'"

"Well then, Link, let me introduce myself. I am Dotour, mayor of Clock Town. May I be the first to welcome you to Termina. Ahem... Welcome!" He threw colored paper bits out of the window of his machine. He then abruptly closed his machine's window, and the animal thing zoomed away in a poof of smoke, leaving me to cough in its exhaust and contemplate what I was supposed to do now.

A Note from the Author: I hope you enjoyed it, however short! I've got big plans for Shadow Apocalypse--you may see some of them already in this chapter. But as I said before, I'm not going to forget about Fallen Matriarch--there will be no more chapters of Sovereign Swamped until the former is done.

Please write a review! They're to me what Heart Containers are in the Zelda series--my only source of survival!