Song of Bloodshed
"'Round and 'round, 'round and 'round," sang the happy organ-grinder as he observed the operation of Kakariko's windmill.
"'Round and 'round!" echoed the man's son, Ben.
The organ-grinder, Guru-Guru, was happy to see his son was happy. He didn't see too much of Ben, because he was always frolicking in the graveyard alongside Dampe.
Dampe and Guru-Guru were long-time friends. They'd both studied to be engineers, but only Guru-Guru came close. Despite his ghastly appearance and his rude charisma, Dampe truly loved children.
Guru-Guru's wife was at home, straightening up the place for royal visitors. Princess Zelda, as well as her guard Impa, were to come to his home and honor him for his efforts at the windmill. The windmill was not only responsible for most of Hyrule's grain, but it also regulated the area's water supply. Guru-Guru was floating in ecstasy; he couldn't ask for a better life.
"I'm gonna go play in the graveyard!" these words would usually feel like a knife's edge to Guru-Guru's heart, but due to his mood, he hardly noticed. Patting his son on the head, he told him to return before four. As his son made his way out, a tiny forest child entered.
The boy stood in front of the organ-grinder man and starred at him with a somewhat blank expression. The boy glanced at the poster to Guru-Guru's left. It was a diagram of the windmill. This one only showed how the windmill regulated the water, and explained nothing of the grain.
The boy looked back to Guru-Guru, who was still turning the lever on his phonograph-device. Then, the green boy pulled out an ocarina. As he did this, a blue-green fairy floated around his head.
"Ah, an ocarina!" Guru-Guru clapped happily. He stopped playing the old Hyrulean hymn and awaited the boy's performance. "I'll try and follow along!"
Guru-Guru had seen this boy before. He had come in the previous day. He was trying to throw a boomerang at a heart-shaped stone that resided on the next floor up. The organ-grinder tried to tell him that he'd probably have to get taller before taking it, and the boy ran off. In seconds, the stone had disappeared. Guru-Guru found this odd, but disregarded it. The stone wasn't even his, anyways.
The boy played only six notes. Guru-Guru slowly followed along on his music machine. As the sixth note hit, Guru-Guru's playing came to a stop. He felt something on his skin. He looked up.
"…Rain?" he thought aloud with an outstretched arm. "Inside the windmill!"
Just as he was thinking this, the gears in the windmill spun faster and faster; round and round again. Smiling, the boy stepped back onto the rotation floor and was shot off towards the door. Taking advantage of this, the boy made to open it. Guru-Guru, after attempting to follow, yelled to the boy:
"You brat! You did this, didn't you! You and your damned ocarina!"
The boy paid no mind to Guru-Guru's words. Following the boy outside, Guru-Guru only caught a glimpse of the boy playing the ocarina. In a flash of yellow light, the boy was gone.
It was three o'clock when a man with a pointed moustache came pounding at the door to the windmill. Opening it, Guru-Guru found it to be Ingo of Lon-Lon Ranch.
"Our supply of flour was supposed to be delivered three hours ago!" cried Ingo. Guru-Guru rubbed Ingo's saliva off of his face and replied with:
"Some brat came and messed up the windmill. The water from the well burst through a hole in the pipes. Hyrule's entire supply of grain is soaked."
"Damn you!"
"Damn me!" Guru-Guru cried angrily. "It's that forest-boy's fault!"
"You're no good!" cried Ingo. "That's it! I have no choice! We will no longer be using your services! Damn, I'll have to order our supply of grain from Termina!"
Ingo turned to the door, but Guru-Guru placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Please…" he said. "Just… could you possibly return around six o'clock? Regardless of what you do in the end, I'd like to do my best to—"
"Oh, enough already! I'll be here, if it'll get me out of work. I'll tell Malon and her father that you plan to have some flour by then!"
"Thank you." Guru-Guru sighed as the door slammed in his face. He didn't know what he was going to do.
The meeting at four went worse than Guru-Guru had expected. Her father, the King of Hyrule himself, had decided to accompany his daughter. Upon learning of the disaster that struck, the King decided that Guru-Guru would no longer be recognized as a Hylian, and that Dampe would take his place at the windmill. His home would be given to Dampe as well, and Guru-Guru's family would have to live in what was originally Dampe's tiny hut-of-a-home.
His wife looked away. His son cried crocodile tears. He himself wasn't sure what to do.
Guru-Guru spent the night at the windmill. Dampe wouldn't seize control of it until noon the next day, and the organ-grinder wanted to revel on all of his memories there. He had been in the town since he was a child, and played with the old man who operated the mill before him. His name was Raru, as he recalled, and had given him the odd music-machine that he held to that day.
To think, his memories, his family, and his pride could be ruined by a little brat with an ocarina!
Guru-Guru slammed the cold, wooden floor that he laid on. This can't happen, he thought. It won't! I won't allow it!
Guru-Guru stood up. Opening a cabinet, he removed a handsaw. He set out to make some adjustments to the windmill.
"Yo, Guru-Guru," said Dampe, entering the windmill at noon the next day. "I heard you spent the night. Sorry, man. I can't let you stay any longer." Dampe stopped when he saw Guru-Guru slouched over in his usual spot. He approached Guru-Guru slowly, and softly touched his shoulder. "Yo. You okay?"
Guru-Guru swiftly turned. Purple rings below his eyes displayed that he had gotten no sleep that night. In his hand, he held a crowbar. He scowled at Dampe, tightly clutching the crowbar in hand.
The next thing Dampe knew, he found himself wedged tightly between the rotating wooden floor and the stone that encircled it. The windmill was no longer working due to the storm, and Dampe found this fortunate. He had an idea as to what was going on.
"Look, Guru," Dampe said, keeping his cool. "I don't know why you think you need to do this, but it won't work anyway. The windmill isn't operational."
"'Round and 'round…" muttered Guru-Guru, bearing the same scowl he'd given the forest-boy. "Spinning, spinning…" Guru-Guru slowly began turning the lever on his hand-organ. The song he was playing, as far as he knew, had no name but "Song of Bloodshed." He began with the six notes played by the forest boy, and added more onto it. As he progressed through the song, he played faster and faster.
"What are you—?" Dampe was interrupted by a bolt of lightning. Following that, rain began to fall both in and outside of the windmill. The weight of the rain caused the faulty windmill to slowly begin turning.
"Wait, stop!" cried Dampe, as the wooden floor began to rotate. He found that he was secured to the side of the rotating floor. His face was being sanded by the rough surface of the stone that appeared to spin around him.
"Spinning, spinning, 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round!" Guru-Guru's scowl became a maniacal grin, as he began to cackle. Skin was eroding from his face, and pools of blood formed in a spinning motion. Dampe didn't think he would die too soon. He viewed this as torture, rather than murder. He wondered why his college pal would do such a thing? Dampe wasn't very fazed about it, but on the inside, he felt like crying. Unbeknownst to the victim, blades poked out of the stone not too far ahead. As his body continued to circle the room, a low scream accompanied by diluted blood filled the air. Guru-Guru's laughter grew louder and louder, as if he was trying to drown out Dampe's cries for help. The music grew faster and faster, louder and louder.
The Guru-Guru man didn't remove Dampe's corpse. Instead, he left it there and allowed the spinning to wear away at his remains. Once the remaining remains were too thin, Guru-Guru carried them to the cavern at the second floor and left them there. Dampe had explored that place once, and when he found it to be a dead end, he prepared a grave for himself so that if he was buried alive, he could escape via the windmill. It was a kind gesture, in Guru-Guru's eyes.
The people were trying to take his life away from him, Guru-Guru thought. Unless they were stopped, he would lose it to them. One by one, he decided, they would all be sent spinning 'round and 'round. And if that little Kokiri boy would ever return, his death would be the most brutal.