Chapter 2: [currently untitled]
When the shadows faded, Marin and Link were on a dark gray concrete surface, outside. A village square lay around them, followed by rings of small, featureless buildings in dull colors. Dimly colored people went about their normal business, although a few turned and muttered to themselves, looking and pointing at them.
"Are those… dreamers?"
"No way, that's impossible"
"Not impossible, something must be terribly wrong"
"Maybe this is why the bell's stopped ringing…"
There was something odd about these villagers. Link noticed that it was like a blanket of lint had fallen over them. They had hair and clothes colors that looked like they had once been incredibly bright—fuchsia, lime, electric blue—and were now reduced to a dull purple, forest green, and navy. They didn't just look like dull colors; they looked like bright colors that had been covered in dust. The same general appearance was present over the entire town.
Tentatively, Marin took a step forward, looking around in confusion. "Link… where are we?" A stone archway over the edge of the square read Nocte Square. That hardly helped, as neither of them had heard of such a place.
Link quickly followed his friend, just as confused as she was. Just as they passed under the arch, however, a group of soldiers in black armor approached them. One of them held out a spear towards first Link, then Marin. "Hold it. I thought there was only supposed to be one of them."
"That's what I thought too, but you know how… uncertain he can be. Perhaps he changed his mind at the last minute."
"No, he told us afterwards that there should be one." Then the guard brandished his spear in front of both of them, "You! Which one of you is supposed to be here, and why are there two of you?"
"I—uhm—I don't know" Link managed to stutter out. He felt queasy and weak in front of the soldiers. He'd never had to do anything involving fighting before, and that spear looked rather deadly.
The two head soldiers exchanged glances. "Might as well take them both," one said, "We don't know which one he was talking about."
"Yes, I suppose so." The second guard brandished his spear again, "You two, come with us!"
Terrified, they complied, and the group of soldiers led them through the town. At the edge was a sign that read "Nocte City". Outside the city limits was a small fountain in the middle of a grayish grassy area. A girl dressed in a blue dress and an elegant sheer headwrap sat at the edge of the water, gazing into it and paying no attention to the troupe.
They stopped at a tall, black, iron gate. Only then did the castaways see it—a giant narrow castle that in design could have passed for a single tower. It was made of completely black brick and reached towards the sky. The top was blurry in the distance, hard to see. At first glance it looked like it never ended.
"Welcome to the Nightmare Tower" One of the guards announced, "Follow us"
And so they did. They followed the guards up the many, many floors. Again, they seemed like they'd never end. Finally they came to a huge silver-framed set of double doors. Two vassals held them open and beckoned the two inside. As Link passed the, he noticed they shared that similar colorless dull look that the city had.
"…your highnesses" One guard spoke with uncertainty. He seemed the most nervous of the guards, the rest of which seemed indifferent to the whole ordeal. He had dusty blue hair.
Link looked down the room, which was a large throne room, marble tile, black obsidian pillars with silver accents. A long, silver rug with green edging ran down the room and led straight to a jet black, tall throne. Seated across the chair's armrests was a man that looked like he was in his mid-twenties. He had medium length hair darker than the night, which was tucked carelessly out of the way of the simple silver crown he wore. His skin appeared an inhylian gray, and the rest of him was cloaked in robes equally as black as his hair. Unlike everyone else they'd seen, this near monochrome didn't feel like a dulling of bright colors. It was as if the gloomy black and gray radiated their own brightness, a contrast of pure black next to all the dusty gray people. The entire throne room radiated that same aura.
The young man turned to sit properly in the throne, though he looked restless, like an overactive child that had been told to sit down. "There are… two of them" He stated, in a voice quite menacing and deep, as though the gravity of the mistake would ensure the death of one or more of the deliverers. The guards looked visibly shaken, and the blue-haired guard mostly stifled a whisper.
The regal figure stepped up to the two, "Now why would there be two of you? We only summoned the girl… what are you doing here?" He pointed at Link. "What's your name, and what are you doing here with the singer?"
"I have a name, you know" She piped up.
"Yes, yes, we know. Marin" He kept that menacing tone of voice up until that point, when he suddenly clapped his hands together and laughed a dark laugh. "An extra! Dear—" He aimed this at Link, "Consider yourself lucky, one of only two dreamers to consciously enter the dream realm for millennia!" His tone was brighter, excitable, hyper, even. "What is your name?"
"My name? I'm Link. Named after the fabled Hero of Time" Link answered, shaking.
"Aaaah, iyes/i …. The fabled hero of time…" His voice grew darker, "We suppose you look up to him? Even though he perished at the hands of Ganondorf? You take pride in being named after a failure?" He laughed, "iPathetic/i. And technically…" He continued, "You're not even related to the hero of time. Which means you can't even claim the heroic spirit that got him as far as he did. "BUT…" he walked around the two, "That doesn't matter. All that matters is that we have the singer now" A dark, victorious laugh. "You are merely a pathetic extra, brought here by a miscalculation of the radius necessary to summon her." He flicked his fingers towards Marin, "Guards, take her to the room we've prepared. We'll take care of the extra."
The guards did as instructed, Marin squirming in their grasp but utterly failing. Once they'd left, Link had the courage to speak again. "Well?"
"Well iwhat?/i"
"Where's the others?"
"Others?"
"you said that 'we will take care of the extra'"… where are the others?
Another laugh, and he vanished and appeared right in front of Link, so that their noses almost touched, "Oh, there are no others. Just us" To make a point, he pointed at himself. "We are the Nightmares that rule this realm, the Dream Realm."
"The Nightmares. But there's only one of you…"
"Truly, you're not descended from the hero of time. He at least possessed some wisdom. But that doesn't matter." Suddenly, his right arm transformed into an obsidian blade, slightly curved, that was about 1 and a half times its original length.
Link gasped and stepped back, "You've got to be kidding me, you don't have to kill me, right? I'm not important enough to be killed, can't you just send me back the way you brought me here?"
The Nightmare sighed, "We could. But that kind of transfer takes quite a bit of energy. And why waste it on a clean journey when the same effect will come from killing you?" He paused, "We forgot to properly introduce ourselves. Though we have many identities, our primary one is named 'Dethl.' Not that it'll matter in a moment.
"Wha—" Link didn't have time to scream before the black blade struck his throat, impaling it. His dead body slumped to the floor.
Link woke with a start to find himself back near Lon Lon ranch. Gingerly he touched his neck. There was an unbearable pain there, but no wound. With effort, he stood, and comprehended what had happened. Marin was gone, in some other world, and he had died yet… not. Worried, he ran back to Castle Town.
Nothing seemed to have changed. The hysterical doctor still could do nothing about his patients, the people still awake were still terrified to go to sleep—or at least some were. Others were still to stubborn to believe the pandemic.
Then suddenly, a loud moan followed by sobbing came from the hospital. Link rushed in to find a small family grouped around one of the patients.
"How could this happen?"
"To survive n-nearly a week without any f-food or w-w-water, as-asleep but still al-alive… and then s-suddenly… "
"I couldn't identify the cause, ma'am, and I'm truly sorry for the loss"
The woman burst out sobbing again. Link tried to get a better look at the teen-aged girl laying on the bed, but the doctor shooed him away, "what do you think you're doing! This is a private matter, and these people are grieving! Get out before I call the guards" Link quickly complied.
Once outside, he sat down on a low brick wall near the hospital. Marin was… gone. People in this world were dying. He sighed and stared at the ground.
"Wish you could do something, don't you?" his thoughts were interrupted by a male voice in front of him. His eyes snapped up at a tall man, aged in his mid-twenties. He had strikingly long silver hair tied behind him in a ponytail. He certainly looked out of place with bright clothes—a white and bright teal longsleeved shirt with fuchsia trim, white shorts, black leggings, green shoes, and all tied together with a green cape clasped with a broach that looked oddly like it resembled some kind of bird egg.
"Who are you?" He stood up, still failing at least a foot shorter than the stranger.
"You may call me Levi"
"But… who are you? I mean… how come I've never seen you before?
"Follow me." Levi instructed, and began to walk towards the south gate, "I'm the one that's going to help you get your dreamer friend back"