Blinded Truth
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Chapter 3
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There were no steps. He forgot. It was a nearly ninety degree stone inclination, crevices embedded deep into the stone to allow some sort of place his fingers could wedge into. But the illusion had tricked him; his Sheikah senses too clouded over to realize it. He fell deep, maybe thirty- forty feet into the dark abyss. His scream was caught in his throat, his tongue dry and swelling, as his heart felt like jumping out of his chest. The momentum carried him quickly downward, and he wouldn't have the chance to land gracefully; his legs were tangled and uncontrollable under him. He reached out instinctively, groping for anything nearby. The dark, indescribable walls were slick and moist and slimy against his fingertips. Nevertheless, he dug his fingernails into the cold, praying to the goddesses for a crack or a niche in the stone.
Some down half way, his fingertips caught a chunk of loose wall, spraying it onto him as his wrist nearly twisted with such strong force that his hand- not to mention his entire arm, felt like popping off. He had caught a crevice, and he struggled to keep his fingertips from sliding out. Swinging slightly, he readjusted his body, chest to the wall, to pull his other hand to support himself. His arm ached, the shoulder feeling ready to detach, and the pain (like fire) traveled throughout his body. His head spun, the darkness too overwhelming, making him nearly forget which way was up.
He grunted, teeth grinding, as he hugged the wall. Sweat dotted his forehead, trickling to the sides. The vertical tunnel seemed much more harmful than he remembered. Its insides like that of some great beast, daring to swallow him up if he fell too far in, where its jaws would snap shut and leave him in darkness. His heart pounded vigorously in his chest, drumming loudly in his ears, deafening. He let himself hang, now. Letting his flushed cheek rest onto the slick and cold wall before him, he hoped to calm himself down enough to think, enough to see.
He took a deep breath, letting the sickly sweet smell of earth to overwhelm him. His mind raced, and he could feel the flush of warmth in his cheeks lessen. He kept his hands where they were, and began searching for a crevice to place his feet. It took a few minutes, the strain on his arms beginning to worsen. He grunted, groaned, seethed. Ah, an opening. A deeper one than the ones his fingertips grasped for dear life. He rearranged himself, daring to slide his fingers to and fro on the walls. As he did, his right foot quavered slightly, his boot not too entirely fixed into place. Another loose piece chipped and fell. It wasn't too long until he heard the dull thud of it against the ground. He debated, now, whether he should jump. It wasn't as if he was some normal Hylian- some senseless creature.
He gritted his teeth, and then braced himself. On the count of three, he would jump and let himself fall again, but knowingly this time. And he couldn't say he didn't mean to kill himself… One...two… Last minute thoughts shuffled his movements, and by the time it came for three he had been too jittered. But, he jumped. Unorganized, unpracticed. He felt terrible. The landing had him in a heap, but at least it hadn't been too far off. Maybe ten feet, fifteen? He groaned in irritation more than any other soreness, as he felt his ankle ignite with pain with pain that up his arms and down his feet to lick at the rest of him. At least his hands were free. His fingers were sore, though, his shoulders stiff, and his wrists stabbing with sharp needles.
The ground under him was hard and compact, just like the stone walls. He grimaced, pulling himself into a sitting position and leaning his back against the stone. His head bumped against it, and he merely had enough energy to groan. His headache worsened, but it was nothing compared the hallucinations. He thought he could hear something scuffling. Beyond the low arch before him, where the blackness seemed blacker than the tunnel, a soft shift could be discerned from the quiet- here and there. A rat's pitter patter, maybe. But it was too deliberate, too loud for a mere rat. It sparked his interest, and he crawled forward, grit digging into the palms of his hands.
His pupils needed time to adjust to the darkness, opening wide, nearly so large that the white of his eyes disappeared in the deep blackness, a mere thin ring of red glowing faintly. He would need to make sure he didn't step out into the sun too quickly, or face burning his means of vision to a crisp. And, just in case, he walked slowly, as if a light would flash in his eyes at any given second.
The ground soon gave way to cold dirt, scraping under his nails and sticking to his palms. He was under the arch now, the coldness seeping to the marrow of his bones now. There was a bad vibe now, pulsing through him, forcing his eyes to water. He hated this place, but it called to him. He needed to go, had to.
The temperature dropped, accompanied with the horrid sound of unutterable silence. Nothing scurried past, nothing groaned in agony, nothing… It wasn't right, Erebus reasoned. He hid his groan, and shuffled to his feet. The world spun for a second, and the dark ground plummeted toward him. He leaned haphazardly to his side, grappling onto the naked wall. It held him for a while, enough to allow the fuzzy world to come back into focus.
With eyes burning, he righted himself, ignoring the beads of sweat that uncomfortably latched his hair to his skin. He felt exhausted, confused. Death lurked at every dark corner and crevice; the pungent odor of mold and decay shrouded his senses. He could hardly manage to walk, to breathe. Never before had it caused so much pain to walk here, the world hidden from the Sheikah. He should have never created such a place, never should have placed the object he searched for in these tunnels and rooms. Death was literal, now. The souls ravaged by war had crawled here, to escape, to only live in their disastrous greed and envy. Erebus shuddered at this; he felt vile, like the dirt under his feet. This place was the absolute opposite of the Shadow Temple, he knew. All the evil he had placed here. And he prayed to the goddesses it wouldn't leak into the sacred sanctuary…
A shriek- so loud, so terrifying, and so full of pain and agony- tore through the air and into him. To the very marrow of his bones, he could feel it, coursing like electricity throughout him. He convulsed, grabbing his head in attempt to keep the scream from pounding his brain to mush. But something caught him in the darkness. Cold, raw, and clammy; it bit hard through the scuff of his coat and into his skin. He cried out, falling to his knees as deadweight plastered onto him. A sharp stab of pain shot into his neck, spreading like fire throughout him. His eyes felt like bursting into flames, his head growing so thick and heavy that it clogged out all his thoughts. His body numbed to the torture, feeling like the deadweight that had latched onto his back, sucking the life out of him.
Upyri, his mind screamed, get off…get off… His tongue was like heavy lead in his mouth. His teeth gritted together.
The poison spread throughout him, the saliva sticking to him like a second skin. But there was a painful relief above him. The heavy weight had lifted from his shoulders, and quickly he was aware of the cold ground below him and the cool air swirling around his head. Something dropped with a thump beside him, and he slowly flicked his burning eyes open. Black, lifeless, glinting orbs like black buttons against raggedy old skin stared back at him. His breath hitched, and his lungs began to burn with the already long lack of oxygen.
"Idiot," a voice whispered into his ear.
There was a wavering scream, bit back by his own pain, and he realized it had come from his own mouth. He was unsure of the reason of the rippling pain until he lost the feeling of the ground under him. He was being lifted up. He wanted to fight away, to toss the annoyingly cold hand, but he had lost consciousness after that.
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"Did you lose all sense of logic, Erebus?" Impa chided for about the tenth time since he had woken. And he had nothing to do but lay there and listen, half way in or half way out.
"I'm…sorry, Impa." He croaked, sighing lightly. It wasn't a sigh of remorse, however. If he could, he would be smiling, his pale cheeks able to glow a faint flush of pink. Only a few feet away, lay his son. His small form curled into a light ball, his chest rising and falling with his dreamlike breathing. Fido had slept through the entire ordeal, his memories of hiding underground with one of the girl's in the village forgotten into oblivion. Erebus had assumed the girl had been taken as well- along with Ganon's new enforcements. But she lay just as still next to Fido, her raven hair like a thorny halo against her dark skin.
"She was scared out of her mind;" Impa said softly, "The magic was dying out by the time you came."
Erebus sighed, turning away with a dull ache that numbed his body to the core, "It was a lucky thing that I came, huh?"
"What was lucky," Impa interjected, slopping a wet rag onto his forehead, making him cringe in annoyance, "was that I came in time to save your sorry ass before the upyri could kill you."
Erebus's head spun, and he let the ret wag fall to the ground. Impa snatched it before it could get dirty. "You know I've already been infected, don't you?"
Impa shook her head, "I have sent a group to the castle to gather a cure. It won't be long…"
"…Before I die." Erebus hissed.
Impa slapped his shoulder lightly before returning to dunk the damp rag into the water in a chipped basin recovered from one of the houses. "You, be quiet. You'll live, understand?"
Erebus chuckled bitterly, turning to glance at the raven-haired girl once again, "She'll take care of him, won't she?"
Impa lifted an eyebrow, taking slower movements now to reconsider his words, "What do you mean?"
"Both of you will…" he finished, closing his eyes to keep them from hurting any more in the evening sun.
Impa shook indiscernible thoughts that threatened to crystallize in her head. She didn't want to think about her cousin like that. It was hard, however, when he continued his rant on how to become some sort of kamikaze Sheikah soldier.
"She hid him, Impa," Erebus said, hardly above a whisper, "She…I have to find her…"
"No," his cousin remarked curtly, placing the wet rag on his forehead once again, "For all that we know she could have hidden him before she turned against us all."
"I doubt that," Erebus continued, "I should have known; if I had just known the truth- she was fighting so hard, Impa." He turned his head to glance at her, and she quickly took his forehead and firmly kept the rag from slipping off his damp skin. He couldn't move his head now, and he narrowed his eyes in irritation. At least, he thought so. He felt so numb.
"Maybe…" Impa whispered softly, gaze thoughtful.
It was the end of that conversation, as Fido finally awoke from his peaceful slumber and completely unaware of his mother's absence. Erebus wanted to sleep rather than face the horrible truth. But he didn't have to worry so hard about that. He was unconscious by the time dusk gave way to night.
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This time, when Erebus awoke, it was midnight. Instead of the sun choked by rising smoke, it was the clear night sky, glowing with millions of tiny stars and the waning gibbous moon. The smoke had disappeared from the atmosphere; everything that remained from the fire was the burnt up debris, poking the sky with splintered wood and rubble of bricks that coated the ground a fine red.
Glancing around, he realized the camps had lessened. There were only two bonfires burning, and the only people remaining in his campfire group were him, his son, the raven-haired girl, and Impa. The other three a few feet away weren't discernable, their faces either turned away from him or hidden behind blankets.
He sat up slowly, eyeing the poor excuse of a village. It made his heart pound with anxiety. He hated what Ganon had done- he hated Ganon in general. And he couldn't stand to just- to lie, he couldn't just lie there and do nothing. One last glance, he promised himself. He wished he could gather the boy in his arms, and promise no one would ever hurt him. But that would be a lie. If he failed this, he would be hurting his own son, and he couldn't bear to tell a lie. It would rip him apart.
He shuffled slightly, edging upward so he could push himself away from the ground with as little noise as possible. It made him sweat terribly, as he felt a dull pain course through his body, through his veins and his bones. His head hurt, growing lightheaded the more and more he tried to stand up. He would have to crawl to the castle… It sickened him. He would probably fall prey to the wolves. They could sense weakness and fear. He wasn't afraid, however. But weakness was a different answer all together.
The exit to the village was close, maybe ten or so meters away. Burnt grass poked, and then crumbled under his palms to become a fine layer of dust on his palms. He looked behind him. The campfire was only a couple feet behind him. He had hardly moved in the last five minutes. There was a light shuffle, now, and he quickly geared into defense mode. It didn't last long, when he saw the girl laying near his son rustle in her sleep. He thought she would stay, but her eyes slowly fluttered open. They took him in, her gaze bemused and then pensive.
"Erebus?" she whispered softly, thin lips barely moving.
He gulped, blinking a few times before taking in a deep but silent breath, "Yes?"
She cocked her head, rolling onto her side. She couldn't have been anymore than fifteen, he realized. And the thing was- she didn't seem like a weak little girl at all. "What are you doing?"
Erebus looked away, toward the exit, "Just…uh…thought I'd take a…crawl?"
The girl blinked, her expression giving away the fact that she was a little too tired for wry jokes, "Would you like some company?"
Erebus furrowed his eyebrows, wondering for one thing, if the girl would rat him out to his cousin. He nodded, and then added, "Would you mind helping me?"
The girl finally smiled, eyes wide and eager, "Of course."
She scrambled to his aid, being quiet still, and helped him to his feet. All the while, Impa remained cozy in her sleeping bed, and Fido nuzzled closer to the warm addition of blankets to his bed.
"Where would you like to go?" the girl asked, as she held his arm to keep him from falling.
"Out of the village," he said quietly, and then continued when she gave him a puzzled expression, "I've forgotten what the fields look like." His sorrowful expression led her to believe him, and she nodded understandingly.
"Erebus," the girl began softly, once they had reached the stone steps that would lead to Hyrule fields, "Do you think this will end soon?"
Her naivety made him want to ridicule her, but he resisted, biting his tongue to keep a sour remark from escaping. "I don't know…ah…" He hesitated, "What is your name?"
She smiled softly, "Evane."
"That's a beautiful name." She didn't acknowledge his compliment, as they took the first step down. He grimaced, trying his best to ignore the pain that seeped throughout him and emerged through his skin like pinprick thorns.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Evane asked; "You don't look so well."
"I'm fine," he muttered, taking a few more steps. His knees felt like buckling under him, but Evane's grip tightened, her fingernails digging into his skin. It kept him upright, and he was grateful for the reassuring pinch. Or else, he would have fallen face flat, or maybe more at a diagonal angle face fall…
They were halfway down- at the leveled turning point. Only one more flight and they would be standing on the grassy ground, viewing the green knolls painted shades of blue under the shining moon.
Erebus could see a faint light shimmering on the horizon, as if a star had fallen from the sky, shining red and green and blue in the dying sunset. He glanced at Evane, wondering if she had seen it. Her impassive gaze answered his question.
"Evane," he said softly but reassuringly, "I think I can take it from here."
"Are you sure?" She asked, unsure as he was certain.
He nodded, smiling, and hoping she bought it, "I just want some time alone."
She bit her lip for a mere second, and then nodded as well, "All right. Be careful." She slowly let go of his arm, and helped him lean against the rock wall for support. Her worried eyes sent a guilty feeling over Erebus, but he shook it away.
Smiling, he then turned to the uneven steps to begin his descent. Evane stood at the top of the steps, watching warily as he managed to get himself all the way down, and into Hyrule Fields.
"See?" he said, turning around with a forced grin, "I'm all right."
She laughed silently, nodded in reassurance, and headed back up the steps.
Erebus sighed in relief, allowing for the icy chill to numb his cheeks and nose. The tall grass around him seemed to whistle along with his own sorrowful cries, and he slowly trudged amongst them. The river flowed just as quietly and mournfully. The stars blinked, uncaring about him, and he glared up at them in disdain. The goddesses wouldn't have ever done something so vile. At least, he thought they would never have done it. But, he could never have denied it, that he was glad they had given him his son back. Without him, all he could think of doing would be to jump down that dark, vertical tunnel again. Ah, he remembered. The eye was still in there. He wondered if Evane had found it yet, hidden amongst death and destruction and lies and deceit and… He was making himself depressed.
Farther along, in the darkness, he could see those glowing lights. He speculated whether he had seen it the first time, or that the angle of where he had been standing the first time had changed the position of the lights. They seemed more east, rather than north. He continued to follow the lights, anyway, with a painful trek that seemed to take hours.
But once he couldn't continue, the pain nearly drowsing him to sleep that every sense in his body was painfully in tune or out of tune. As if, he couldn't see, but he could hear. He could feel, but he couldn't taste. He could smell, but whatever it was wasn't very pleasant. Of course, the market was never very pleasant. By now, the odors had wafted outside the castle gates, and he had half a mind to turn back around, realizing the lights were nowhere to be seen on the fields. He hated himself for having imagined something so ludicrous, until he saw something that was too unusual even for him.
The castle bridge was lowered. The market, however, was silent. A few dogs barked, and the water in the moat lapped at the shore. Nothing else- not even the wind. The two torches lit- one on each side of the entrance, danced lazily, creating halos on the stonewall. Almost like a dream, it seemed, having never seen something so surreal, as the lights that he had seen before came into view. Just beyond the bridge, they glowed. He squinted, trying to make out certain shapes- any shapes at all.
It was impossible, and he gritted his teeth in irritation. Any longer and he would fall to his knees in exhaustion. But the wind howled in his ears, as if telling him to go further, to see what was beyond the bridge. His legs moved before his mind could process the progress. It was agonizingly slow, as his veins pulsed with the re-dead's venom, burning his insides and taking his body temperature up to a new level.
Come closer, he heard the voice, silky and persistent, in his ears.
We won't hurt you, this one was softer, more melodious.
Hurry, this one drove him on, knowing that the reassuring but demanding voice so close to his ears was in actuality, very near.
At the very entrance, under the stone gate, Erebus realized once and for all, that he couldn't continue. He felt like he had when the upyri had attacked him. His entire body felt aflame, his vision blurring, and his ears ringing. Voices tumbled into his head, now, screaming at him, ordering him to do this and that and keep moving. But he couldn't; he was angry, frustrated. His knees buckled under him, and he grabbed his head to keep the dizziness from becoming too overwhelming.
The world spun round and round, edges morphing into nothing but huge blurs. Beautiful faces first became distraught and stretched incomprehensibly before turning into hideous creatures before him with disfigured features. He wanted to vomit, to let the poison seep out of him any possible way it could. There was nothing he could do now, as the world around him faded into darkness, obscuring everything he believed was real into something more or less an undeniably horrible dream.
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