Link sat in the dark, cramped and contorted to fit in the hollow beneath an upturned wheelbarrow. The wooden walls were thick and he couldn't hear very well. Every so often a scream penetrated the walls, but not much else. If he craned his neck in a painful way he could see through a crack in the wood. He did that now, peering through the gap for one uncomfortable moment. Even as he looked upon the flat green surface of Saria's skirt, the wheelbarrow was flipped over. Link sat there in a twisted pile, blinking in the sudden sunlight. "Haha! Gotcha!" Saria exclaimed, grinning. "Ha ha," Link groaned sarcastically, untangling himself with great care. One of his arms was numb. "Oh don't be a sore loser," Saria said, "Anyway, you made it almost all the way to the end." Link fell out flat on the ground and lay there breathing, trying to work the feeling back into his limbs. "Oh really? Who's left?" "Umm, actually it's just Malon now." Link chuckled, picking himself up slowly, "Guess she picked a good place." Suddenly there was worry in Saria's voice, "Well… about that. I kinda… uh… saw her… go into the woods." Link froze. "Are you sure? Which way?" Saria pointed and Link took off in that direction. Mido, who had been lounging against a fencepost, asked, "Hey Link, where're ya' goin?" Saria shouted something just a moment after Link responded. "Saria saw Malon go into the woods. I'm gonna go see if she's okay." As Link left the village he heard Mido announce with obviously false surprise, "Whaaat!? Saria was… cheeeaating?" It wasn't until he was farther into the woods that he realized what Saria had shouted. Link no!
Malon had stopped running a long time ago. She'd stopped running around the third time she passed the tree with two and a half lizards drawn in white chalk on the trunk. The third lizard was actually half lizard half eagle, but that didn't really matter in Malon's opinion. What mattered to her was the fact that she'd passed the tree three times. That shouldn't have been possible, but she had. She was obviously lost, but some part of her head refused to let the rest of her believe that. She wasn't lost, she couldn't be lost. She was in the woods. She couldn't get lost in the woods. Bad things happened to kids who got lost in the woods. Her dad had told her about that. Monsters and ghosts and skeletons and wolves and bats and… something howled in the distance. Malon jumped at the sound and found herself glancing back and forth in a near panic. She hadn't noticed how dark it was getting. Oh Goddesses it was getting dark! She was lost in the woods and it was getting dark. And something had howled. Malon thought she might cry. She wasn't a little girl anymore, but she could still feel the fearful tears about to well up in the corners of her eyes.