Day 16: Building a Castle

I finally found a place where I could sit down and not be spotted by Ganondorf. I didn't like this situation at all. Here I am, a slave working for a man of pure evil in my own home town! I decided to keep a record of my suffering in a diary. I searched my house for my old diary. I received it one year for my birthday but I never managed to write in it. I guess my life was just too normal to keep track of. Too boring to have any value on paper. I somehow found my ink bottle and my feather pen. I couldn't believe I still had them lying around. Nonetheless, I started writing. About the torture, about the work on the castle, everything. I managed to get a simple entry down on the paper.

Dear diary,

I don't have very much time to write right now. Ganondorf has been working all of us to the bone. We have been working since he made the original castle fall apart. So far we have done the doorway. I'm not sure what will happen after we finish his castle. I'm not even sure if anyone will live to see the completed castle. All we can do is hope for the best. Hope is pretty much all we have now.

After I wrote down the first entry, I put the diary away and quickly went back to the worksite. If I was noticed in my house, I would definitely be toast. I wouldn't want to end up like that girl.

Day 28: uuugh...

A couple weeks passed by and I continued to work on the castle. But I didn't forget about my diary. I just couldn't find a good opportunity to sneak away to my house lately. Day after day I toiled under the stormy sky. Occasionally it would rain, but this rain didn't feel like normal rain. It almost seemed as if it was meant to make people feel more agony than usual. Maybe I was just going crazy.

One day Ganondorf went to take a quick stroll to Lon-Lon ranch. This was my chance to escape! I dashed to the exit but I smacked directly into a barrier of the dark variety. I could feel a shock from that barrier. I decided to use this extra time to make a diary entry. I limped up to the second floor where my house was. I took my diary out from under my bed and started to write a little. I hated Ganondorf with all of my being. The way he treated everyone was horrible and unacceptable. No wonder I got a warning about him.

Dear diary,

It has been so long since I've gotten a chance to write. My hands and everything ache from working tirelessly on the castle. We're working on the base of the tower now. I feel like I've been working for forever. A couple people have been worked to death already. Forced to move things too heavy for themselves, being crushed by boulders, hit by energy balls for rebelling, babies being corner-stomped... The list goes on and on. I am lucky to be alive right now. I pray that it stays that way.

I finished my entry and put the diary back under my bed. Ganondorf would be coming back soon. His errands usually don't last very long. I made my way back to the worksite with a reason to live: to get through this ordeal and live to tell the tale.

Day 44: The Tunnel to Freedom

Many days passed, many had suffered. Most of them had lost all hope of ever seeing the pure light of day ever again. But I kept on with my job. I was determined to make it out of this mess even if I had nowhere else to go. But the more I worked on the castle, the more I despised Ganondorf and his evil intentions. For some strange reason, Ganondorf left to take a trip to Death Mountain. He said something about showing them whose boss. Who exactly? The only ones that lived on Death Mountain were the Gorons, and they have never done anything far from their home. I was just about to sneak to my house when I heard someone nearby.

"Psst! Follow me if you wish to be free from the monotony!" A teenage girl with purple hair whispered to me from the alley. I followed her silently to the Bazaar.

I went through the door and surprisingly, everyone was there! The man from the happy mask shop, those two men in the red and blue, the snooty woman who used to own a dog, and... that girl. Her curly hair was dusted with a fine layer of dirt from working so much. Her dress frayed at the end from overuse. But she was beautiful all the same. I looked at her for what seemed like hours.

Ting ting ting! The fork went against the glass. "Attention people! Settle down! Let's get this meeting underway!" The Bazaar shopkeeper said in his booming, leader-ish voice. "We are here for one reason: to organize a way to escape this place!" The crowd cheered in delight. "Now, does anyone have any ideas?"

"Oh! I do!" The happy mask man said holding his arm up high as he could like a first grader dying to be called on.

"Okay, what do you suppose we do?" The Bazaar shopkeeper said.

"You know about the gossip stones, Right?"

"Yes, there are a couple of them right outside the Temple of Time"

"Well anyways, I plan to use the mask of truth to get some useful information from the Gossip stones"

"That sounds easy enough. Anyone else have any ideas?"

"I do." The wonderful, brown-locked girl said from a far corner of the room. "I think we should dig our way out of here. All we have to do is work on the tunnel while Ganondorf isn't watching"

"What?! More work?! I thought we were trying to escape from labor, not add more to it!" A random person in the crowd said.

"Look, do you want to get stuck in this trash-heap for the rest of your lives, or do you want to get out of here? Sometimes you have to do a little bit more work to get what you want." I stared at her lips as they moved as fluently as a like-like in a shield factory. I would follow her to the end of the world... Though we were already there.

Then, the roof was suddenly lifted from above us! Ganondorf had noticed that nobody was working! He stared at us all like rats in a cage. He couldn't shoot an energy ball at us; he needed us to build his castle. Or at least that is what I hoped. "I leave for one moment and this is what you do?! I shall punish you all!" Ganondorf bellowed as he charged a small energy ball and shot it down at us. BOOM! It hit a corner with a couple men standing in it. Everyone else (including me and my secret crush) ran out the door to avoid getting hit. The men in that corner didn't make it out. They exploded from the sheer amount of energy in that small energy ball. Ganondorf was getting stronger. I ran to my house as fast as I could. Ganondorf didn't seem to notice for some reason. Maybe he wanted me to do this. Maybe...

The moment I got home, I wrote a diary entry. Lots of things happened today.

Dear diary,

I am getting fed up with working on this castle. We all know that he could just build the thing himself. So we are secretly planning to all escape. When Ganondorf isn't watching, all of us are going to escape through a tunnel that we've been working on. All we have to do is get a good distraction. The man from the happy mask shop is planning on using the mask of truth to find out more things about Ganondorf from the gossip stones outside of the Temple of Time. That reminds me; Link never did come out of the Temple of Time that one day when he said he had to go there. I'm going to go there tomorrow to see why he vanished. Also, Ganondorf killed a couple of men after the meeting. I hate that man and his scruffy crimson hair...

I put my diary away, and went to sleep. We were only allowed to sleep at a certain time. And when the lights were out, everyone went to bed, no exceptions.

Day 45: One question answered, two more appear

The Temple of Time. Now that I think of it, isn't a town a strange place to put a temple? Especially one that looks more like a church than a temple. But it serves its purpose... whatever that purpose is... I stood outside the Temple as the happy mask man somehow communicated with the strange rocks nearby. I swear, those rocks were creepy. They seem to stare right through you, like they know all of your darkest secrets. Maybe that's how they somehow knew so much. So, veering away from the Gossip stones, I remembered that a while ago, Navi and Link went to this very same temple for some reason. Probably had something to do with the Ocarina of time. Now that I think of it, I haven't seen them since. So I decided to take a quick peek inside.

I sneaked into the Temple of Time and to my surprise, everything was... quiet. Okay, not really a surprise. I walked along the carpet leading to the Door of time. What was with all the time related stuff here? I just stared blankly at the Door of Time. It had been opened. I then remembered that I had brought my diary and my writing stuff with me that day.

Dear diary,

I went to the temple of Time today and to my surprise, the door of time was open! I went inside and to my discovery; the Master sword was missing from its pedestal! Where did it go? And more importantly, where did Link go? Did he get killed by Ganondorf? No, if he was killed by him, there would at least be a smudge mark on the ground where he got hit by an energy ball. And I know that Ganondorf couldn't have taken the Master sword because evil is destroyed when it touches it. And believe me, Ganondorf is the epitome of evil. Whatever happened must have been exciting. But I have enough excitement in my life trying to stay alive! Maybe one day I will be free of this terrible place.

I wrote an entry right there in the Temple of Time and then put it away in my bag. Maybe I should carry my diary with me more often...

Day 51: the Escape

Ting ting ting ting ting! The fork rapidly tapped as the crowd settled down. "As you all know, the happy mask man has found out something vital to our mission. Would you like to tell us?" The Bazaar salesman said, waiting for a reply. "Excuse me to interrupt, but he was taken down a couple days ago." The lady that owned the dog said as she wiped a tear from her eye.

"Oh. Did anyone else hear the information from him before he got hit?"

"I did!" A man in light blue said in a funny tone. "He said something about Ganondorf going to bed at 1:34 AM sharp every night. He also said that he only sleeps for three hours before getting up again. I don't know what two hours of time could do for us, especially during the curfew..."

"Two hours will be plenty time to get us out of here if we work together!" My lovely lady said with enough confidence to knock down a brick wall. "I already have a tunnel partially started inside my house. Everyone must come at 1:34 AM to work on the tunnel. I will explain the rest at my house. Any questions?" The whole place was quiet for a moment. She truly had the master plan. But I had just one question. I struggled to let it out. She might not let me know something like that. But somehow, I mustered the guts to say it out loud.

"Um... what is your name?"

"Oh, my name is Clara."

Clara. Such a wonderful name... I would snuggle with your name every night if I could...

"Okay then! You all know the drill: at 1:34 AM we start the dig! Get a good rest before then!" Clara said as everyone left the building. I skipped happily to my house and quickly wrote down a diary entry.

Dear diary,

Tonight is the night we finally escape. The happy mask man has found out that Ganondorf goes to sleep every night at 1:34 AM for three hours. That will be enough time for all of us to escape from this wasteland. I also met a nice girl. Her name is Clara. She helped organize the escape plan. Maybe once we flee this sweatshop, I can truly express my love for her...

After I wrote a little, I put the diary in my bag so that I wouldn't leave it when I left. Before I knew it, 1:30 had come and I was prepared to leave.

At 1:34 AM, all of us were gathered in Clara's house. We got out our shovels from the job-site and started to dig a tunnel. It went faster than I expected. I guess that was because so many people were working on it. I shoveled as hard as I could, determined to break through. An hour passed, and we already had a tunnel almost a half a mile long! I continued to dig like I had never dug before. Dirt pile after dirt pile, we eventually made it!

"Freedom!" The beggar cheered as we all jumped for joy. We had did it. Finally free to do what we wanted to. But something seemed strange. There weren't any stalchildren! Maybe they were just a myth after all.

"Hey, now that we're free and stuff, where should we go?" The funny sounding man in red said

"I think we should go to Kakariko village. After all, they have pretty good hospitality there." I replied, remembering the time when I first took a trip to Kakariko.

"Kakariko it is! C'mon guys!" Clara said as she lead us to the promised land. Then I remembered, I still had my diary! I pulled it out of my bag and wrote as I followed the crowd.

Dear diary,

We have finally made it! Soon we will be in Kakariko and we will truly be free! I asked Clara if we could go out on a date and she said yes! I thank Nayru for this. I can't wait! This will end my diary entries. I have no need to write them now that we are free. May the pages of this diary stay intact for years to come.

I put my diary back in my bag and soon enough, we were in Kakariko village and the sun was coming up. We were finally free.