The Link's
Chapter 1
Link lie in his bed, bruises and cuts were scattered all across his body and every movement was agonizing pain.
"Sleep is completely out of the question tonight" He thought to himself. (Italics)
So he decided to dress some of the deeper, more major wounds on his body. As he stumbled to the bathroom, nearly falling to the ground several times, he flicked on the light overhead and started to assess the wounds. There was a nice gash across his torso that would need a stitch or two, there was an extremely deep stab wound on his right forearm that needed professional help, but seeing as he was low on money he decided it best to dress the wounds himself.
"Ahhhhhh!" He screamed as he inserted the needle into his stomach.
He began the slow and painful process of closing the wound of the fight he had narrowly escaped from just a few hours ago. A grueling 15 minutes later, he has finished his stomach and tied the knot on the string.
"Now to see about my arm" He whispered to himself.
The stab wound on his arm was at least an inch or so into his arm and, thankfully, has just missed the bone and any major arteries. He extended his good arm to the shelf that held the disinfectant in the cupboard and poured a little onto his arm.
"Sssss!" He hissed with pain. "That was damn near as bad as putting stitches in my stomach".
Once the wound was disinfected he started stitching up the hole in his arm trying to move as fast as possible to just get it over with. Once finished with that, and after looking over and other wounds, he determined he was cleaned up enough to try and lie down. Once he had lain down he had begun to think to himself;
"Who was that guy? He.. he looked like... ME almost. But he was a shadow! And he had red eyes, kind of like the ruby the gorons gave me.".
He called himself.. Dark? I think it was..." He spoke aloud "whoever he is, he is one hell of a fighter. I gotta make it a point to stay away from him until I can think of how to deal with him".
He decided it best to push it out of his head, and rolled over (painfuly) to try and rest. That night he was haunted by ruby eyes and long, silvery hair. And a crooked smirk, from a shadowy figure.
Chapter 2
Link arose the next morning to a sharp pain in his stomach, and sat up quickly. He looked to see what had caused the pain, and found that Zelda was sitting next to him.
"I really need to get those locks changed." He whispered.
"Oh shush up Link, you know you love it when I'm here." His blonde friend replied with a smile.
Zelda had always been a childhood friend, and had stuck with him through the thickest times and the easiest. She stood up, and flicked her long hair to the side, and walked away to the kitchen. She was preparing him some soup, when she heard creaking behind her. She turned to find Link slowly limping his way out of the bedroom.
"OHHH no, no, no you are not getting out of bed now mister!" She exclaimed in frustration.
"Look i made it home, and cleaned up my wounds all by myself last night. I think I know how to take care of myself." He spoke softly.
"Yeah, and what a poor job you did of 'cleaning yourself up' there buddy." She told him plainly
Link looked downat his torso and noticed blood had begun to leak through the quick stitches he put in.
"Yeah, so?" He asked nonchalantly.
Zelda just shook her head at her naive friend, she knew she would have to pull them all out and redo it. He would complain, but in the end he would understand.
"You know we are redoing those, right?" She asked.
"WHAT!? But I just did them last night!" He yelled, angrily.
"Yes, and htey are already coming apart aren't they?" She mused.
Again Link looked down and noticed them coming undone one by one. His arm on the other hand, was holding up quite nicely he thought.
"Alright" He spoke "But we're leaving my arm alone!"
Zelda let out a small laugh.
"Haha, alright, alright it's a deal" She said as she winked at him.
Link smiled and began to laugh too, but quickly stopped after he got a friendly reminder of the still loosening stitches in his stomach. After she had finished cleaning him up, and re-dressing his wounds, she decided to ask him what she had come here for.
"Link... What happened? Where were you last night? And more importantly, why do you have so many cuts on you?" She asked carefully, not wanting to anger him.
Link thought about this for a moment, for he could not quite recall where he had been and what had really happened. All's he could think of was the ruby eyes, and the crooked smile.
"I don't rightly recall Zelda; All's I can remember is a shadowy figure, these... haunting red eyes.. and this creepy smile." Link said, as he gazed off into space.
"You don't even remember where you were?" His friend asked, quite frightened by the mental image of the man.
Link thought long and hard about this, he couldn't remember the exact place. Just bits and pieces of his surroundings.
"I remember... Stone walls and a lot of water." He said tentatively.
"Well the only place in all of Hyrule that has a lot of water, is Lake Hylia." She said simply.
"That's it!" He yelled "I was at the lake and I had on that tunic the Zora people gave me."
Zelda could only give Link a questioning look, as she had no clue what he was talking about.
"What's a Zora tunic?" She asked.
"It's the blue tunic I wear when I go swimming? It has the bubbles of air on the back so I can breathe underwater?" He said plainly.
"Ohhhh yeah, I remember it now" Zelda said, not actually knowing what he was talking about "Anyways, why were you at the lake underwater?".
"I was just swimming initially and the I saw this dark, cave structure underneath the water so I figured I'd go check it out" He explained "I swam in and noticed it went up so I followed in into this opening. There was a tree and a pool of water covering the floor. Not deep enough to fall in, it just covered your feet.".
"That's weird, I've seen every bit of the lake and never once have I seen a cave at the bottom." Zelda said.
"Well, it is at the bottom. Can you swim to the bottom Z?" He asked jokingly.
"Oh, no i guess not." She laughed/
"Anyways" He continued "There was a tree in the middle, like I said, so I walked right up to it and it was just completely dead. No leaves, bark was peeling off, it had even started to rot.".
"Well how could a tree die if it is surrounded by water?" She asked.
"There was no sunlight in the room, it was completely lit by torches." He answered.
"Ah, yeah that'll kill a tree pretty quick." She chuckled.
"Haha yeah, so I started to walk away to leave cause there was nothing else, but then I heard a sound behind me..." He said, gazing into empty space.
"What kinda sound?" Zelda asked excitedly.
"Like someone stepping in a puddle" he answered "So I turned around and I saw him."
"Who?" She asked.
"The oppostie me.. Dark as he called himself." He answered.
Link thought back to that moment and tried to remember more of what happened in that eerie cave.
"Hello there Link." Said the look-alike.
"Who are you? And what do you want with me?" Asked Link.
"My name is Dark" He said drawing his sword "And I'm going to kill you."
Chapter 3
"You know, that ice arrow you froze me with really hurt!" A voice said aloud.
Link awoke with a start at the loud voice intruding his sleep. He sat up and looked up around his room silently looking for the origin of the voice. It couldn't be much later than 2 in the morning he guessed; So Link crawled out of bed and started walking around his small house. He made it to his living room and heard a pot hit the floor in the kitchen.
"Hello? Is someone in here?" He asked slightly scared.
Suddenly an apple flew past his head and slammed into the wall behind with a loud THUD (bold). Link turned to the wall and quickly pulled out his sword leaning against the wall next to him.
"Show yourself!" He yelled with his sword extended out "Step forward you coward!".
"Oh but you can see me" the voice egged on "I'm just a shadow in the dark Link. You can already see me.".
Another apple was thrown at Link, but this one caught him right in the torso where his stitches were. Link fell to one knee, pain was searing through his body as he clutched at his very tender stomach.
"Oh come on now, I know you can put up more of a fight than that!" The voice told him mockingly.
Link forced himself to stand up and get into a battle stance, ready for what was next.
"You know what I see in you Link? I see someone who could be so much more than what they already are. I see so much anger inside you!" The voice roared in anger "So much.. Darkness. Let it consume you! Let the darkness take over and become who you were truly meant to be!"
"Never! I won't become like that, not while there is still some hope to hold onto!" Link retorted promptly "Now you have one more chance! Show yourself to me, where are you!?"
Over Link's shoulder a face appeared; He had red eyes, long silvery white hair and was almost identical to Link.
"I'm right here old friend" Dark whispered into his ear.
And with that Dark had disappeared before Link could even turn to face him. Link was sweating profusely and breathing raggedly through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath in and sheathed his sword, then sat down slowly on the couch processing everything that had happened.
Chapter 4
Link didn't sleep the rest of the night as he was too busy thinking how to tell all of this to Zelda without freaking her out. And he came to the obvious, yet, eloquent conclusion that he couldn't. So he would just have to bluntly tell her that the person who tried to kill him was in his house the night before mocking him. He figured she wouldn't take too kindly to it.
"Oh my god Link he was in your house?!" She exclaimed at him "Are you alright? Did he hurt you? Did he take anything? Did he... do bad touches?"
"What the fu.. No Zelda he didn't touch me! Why would you even ask that?" He asked her, quite shocked by her question.
"Well you never know Link! He could have done something to you while you were sleeping." She retorted.
"Honestly that's the least of my worries Z, I wanna know how he got into my house." He said, a little worried "I had every door and window locked after you left, yet he still got in. How did he do that?".
"I honestly don't know, I'm just glad you're okay and still alive." She told him.
She then wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close while Link wrapped his around her waist tightly.
"Z I'm okay I promise. Everything is okay now, I'm still here." He gasped.
"I know Link, I know. It's just scary to think I could have lost you last night. I would have never seen you again and I don't want that to happen!" She said through tears.
Link didn't know what to do, he had a million things running through his head. He leaned back from her and wiped away the tears from his best friends face and gave her a sheepish smile. She giggled back at him and then leaned in and pushed her lips against his. Link didn't object to the kiss, but his eyes were wide open in surprise at what was happening. They stood there in the middle of Kakariko kissing for what seemed like forever to Link, but all to soon Zelda pulled away slowly and looked up into his eyes.
"I'm not going to lose you Link." She said, blushing furiously "You mean way too much to me, that's why I will have two guards posted around your house so they can keep an eye on things.".
"Now you don't need to go and do that Z; You need those guards for yourself." He told her calmly.
"Two guards out of an entire armada?" She asked with a laugh "I think I'll be okay Link. I just want to help in some way, okay?"
Link let out a deep sigh "As you wish, my lady" He said bowing to her.
She let out a loud laugh and shoved him slightly "You know I hate it when you do that!".
Link smirked at her and held out his hand, she smiled and slid her hand into his and they began slowly walking back to Hyrule Castle.