Zelda was horrified. She could hardly believe the sight that beheld her.
Earlier, she and Impa had climbed down Death Mountain, visibly alert and fearful. The Lizalfos would not take the sudden absence of the Ring of Fire and Volvagia's death lightly; they would be out of blood.
Yet not a snout poked out of the walls or crevices as far as Zelda could see. She did not know whether to worry or not. It was Impa who had concluded the Lizalfos were possibly frightened. They're unsure how to approach this sudden absence of Volvagia.
Zelda hesitantly accepted the notion; she was still on edge until she spotted the familiar rusted iron gate ahead.
It was here Impa decided Zelda should change out of her Sheikah outfit and don a more "natural" look. Suggesting she replace her current disguise with a different one. Zelda had just wrapped her fingers around the hem of her turtle-neck when she paused. Her ears twitched.
She heard shrieks.
She gazed past the iron cat. She smelled blood. Thick and coppery.
Impa looked up. "Zelda?"
Zelda did not realize she was running through the Iron Gate with her dagger out. Her other hand flicked to her waist and produced a small buckler shield.
She carefully paused at the top of the hill over-looking Kakariko Village. She was panting. From the tiresome hike out of the mountain with little to eat, Zelda was exhausted. Yet the site before her made the thought of eating leave her mind.
Fire.
The buildings were ablaze with violent flames. Bodies were strewn over cobbled streets and flopped grotesquely on rooftops, as if enjoying the sunlight. Blood smeared the walls and the pavements. Screams of fear pierced the air and people ran for their lives. She saw tiny specks of the population leave the village. Others were running around like ants caught in the rain.
Zelda was not aware she was stumbling until Impa placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Be steady," she said.
"What is-what's happening?" Zelda panted.
Impa scanned the village. "I don't know. Maybe a raid?"
Zelda ran down the hill.
"Zelda!" Impa shouted. "Come back!"
Zelda ran until her feet pounded pavement. People were in pandemonium, running and pushing her out of the way to escape the chaos. Horses ran riderless through the streets, children cried. A burst of flames sprouted behind a rooftop to Zelda's right. Half a minute later another explosion sounded to her left.
What is going on? she thought frantically. Who's doing this? She didn't find one shady-looking villager or creature. She turned a corner across the street end and found more people. Some were not moving, their bodies forgotten.
Despite the chaos a small group of people were working with Kakariko soldiers to pry loose rubble from demolished buildings. The survivors they managed to uncover would be hauled away to safety and the corpses sadly abandoned. They could not afford to respect the dead in a situation as this.
Zelda theorized a cannonball possibly did this, but she almost immediately dispensed the idea. There was no black soot or stray powder.
Inaudible words sounded behind the wall of a wrecked inn. Zelda peaked around the corner. An elderly woman lay curled in the remains of a wooden floor. Blood coated her forehead. She was moaning and clutching her elbow.
Zelda knelt beside her. "Don't worry," she tried to soothe. It came out with a grunt. "You'll be okay."
The elbow was broken, she would need a splint. Zelda uttered a small apology and tore off a strip of cloth from the woman's dress. She shaped it and tied the cloth securely around her elbow.
"Can you walk?"
"I don't know," the woman slurred. "It hurts so much..."
Zelda was too exhausted to attempt to carry her burden. She looked over her shoulder for help. The people left, along with the survivors. She was on her own.
"Try." Zelda gently but firmly helped her to her feet. "We can't stay here." She looked around blankly. Where do you take an injured victim in the middle of a chaotic villager? Outside the village? Zelda decided her best bet was to follow the others, see where they dumped the survivors. She hoped the traffic general public died down.
"What's your name?" Zelda asked, hoping to alleviate the woman's pain.
"Gertha."
"Gertha, do you know what happened here? Who did this?"
Gertha's eyes fluttered. "I don't know. I was stacking dishes when-" she swallowed. "-noise, shouts. It felt like a cannonball... Where's my husband?"
Zelda looked up. She spotted a bloodied leg poke out of large slabs of cement.
She turned Gertha's head away and half-walked, half-carried her somewhere she hoped was safe.
[[[-]]]
"I swear, you run as if you're a rabbit!" Impa rasped. She looked angry.
Zelda nodded absently. She had managed to hail one of the passing horse-drawn wagons and ease Gertha inside. She shoved a handful of Rupees in the rider's hands and watched him ride away. Zelda felt almost resentful. She trusting Gertha's well-being to a stranger. It pained her to part with the Elder, but she had to stay and help the others.
She was going to search for more survivors when Impa grabbed her wrist.
"Zelda, wait."
Impa, we don't have time," Zelda snapped. She tugged. Impa vice-gripped.
"The Well," Impa coughed.
"What about it?" Zelda said impatiently. As an answer Impa tugged her wrist hard. She practically dragged her to central square. She pointed and Zelda immediately understood. Dread coursed her body.
The fear. That concealed emotion of atrocity she felt when she gazed at the Well. She could not feel it anymore.
[[[-]]]
A body sailed over Zelda's head.
She reached out and tried to conjure a quick spell to catch the victim. She was too late.
Zelda managed to turn her head away the moment the screaming man thumped on the roof.
She had a hard time focusing. People were pushing her. Zelda pushed back without thinking. The screams gave her a headache, claustrophobia set in; everywhere she looked, she saw nothing but fear in their faces.
Zelda broke away from the throng and huddled against the wall, clutching it as if it kept her sanity from spilling. She and Impa had separated during the en masse. She couldn't find her. And these people weren't helping running around like wild Cucco.
It brought a question to her mind. Why was this village still full of people? The community's, but not that big that there'd still be large throngs. Was someone keeping them here? Hindering their escape?
Zelda grabbed an arm from the crowd and hauled a young teen. "What's going on here?" She demanded. "Who's doing this?"
The youth's eyes blazed with terror. Zelda forgot she still don her Sheik outfit. Her piercing red eyes and rough voice possibly frightened the lad.
"I-I don't know!" he babbled. "I tried to get out, but someone keeps starting fires! Or throws buildings at us or grabs us from the shadows!"
Throw buildings? Zelda'mind reeled. So someone was holding the villagers here. Why? To enjoy watching them scream and push their way to a corner? She didn't see or hear the culprit demand anything. Whoever they are, they don't want to be seen. But why do this? Was this all a game?
Or were they trying to kill everyone?
The youth yanked his arm and ran. Zelda ignore him.
She watched the people running away from a particular area downtown. But she had just come from there. Nothing had looked suspicious. She hesitated, fidgeting with the grip of her blade.
She braced herself and ran through the crowd. She turned the corner and raised her blade.
Nothing.
No monster, no army with weapons ready to kill. Everything looked to be in order.
She would have continued, possibly go further to the center or the edge of town, if it were not for the sudden tightening in her chest. Zelda stiffened. She could feel something watching her. She didn't know why, but it left her paralyzed. She could barely breathe.
"Move it!" Zelda felt someone tackle her around the waist. She stumbled off the road.
The action snapped her out of her trance. She roared and kicked the attacker, hard. The stranger immediately let go. Zelda flipped to her feet and held out of blade.
It was a soldier. He and another were on the ground; they peered at her through sweaty face. Another soldier came in view, giving one of the elderly a piggy-back ride away from the chaos. It could have been a young woman giving her grandfather a ride through the park.
"Are you crazy?'" the soldier shouted. He and the other, a woman with graying her, were on their knees. "It almost got you!"
"What?"
"That... that thing!"
Zelda followed their gaze. She saw nothing.
She narrowed her eyes and looked more closely. A long shadow slithered just around the corner of the street and disappeared. It happened so quickly Zelda was not sure if she actually saw it.
She followed the shadow.
"Hey! Come back!" The soldier yelled.
Zelda rounded the corner. Ahead of her lay a bare stretch of chicken coops and a rusted playground. She irritably pounded her fist against the wall. She was in turmoil: half-relieved she didn't come across the thing, half-irritated she lost the trail.
What was going on? Nothing that big could simply disappear. Or, was it big? Zelda only saw a shadow. Perhaps the sun made it seem large from the side, when it disappeared? No, the sun was behind Zelda, it wouldn't have cast the shadow at the angle she saw.
Zelda stood up straighter. Someone was watching her again. She carefully flitted her eyes at the walls, the rooftops, anywhere an assassin could hide. Nothing.
As quickly as it came, the feeling vanished. She waited tensely for an attack. She massaged the see-through magical binds in her fingers. It was gone.
She slowly exhaled and fingered her blade. She failed to conjure the familiar reassurance. She was facing something a dagger wouldn't stop.
A scream pierced the silence. A little girl's scream. Zelda's blood ran cold; the sound came from behind.
She turned back around the corner. She nearly tripped over the soldiers laying on the ground.
"Huh?" Zelda gasped. Their bodies were twisted. They had identical looks of surprise on their faces, their necks cracked awkwardly.
Zelda shakily crouched to observe them closely. Actually, it was to stop the shaking.
So fast. The creature killed these people behind her and Zelda did not even hear it. It could have gotten her any time. Even now, while she sat here staring at dead bodies while the thing was on the loose.
Zelda snatched the shield from the corpse, slung it over her shoulder and strapped it in place. She eyed the blades. They would slow her down. By the Goddess's, she was already exhausted.
Zelda muttered a swift prayer to their souls and swiftly retreated. She leaped over a fence, passed an empty yard and turned into another empty street.
No, wait, it wasn't empty.
The was a little girl. She looked no more then eight with a tangle of brown hair and freckles on her pale frightened face. She was sliding away from Zelda.
No, not sliding. It looked as if she was being dragged by something. She screamed and scrabbled frantically on the ground, her face grimy and sobbing. Ahead of the street a house was ablaze; the girl was sliding to the front entrance.
No! Zelda thought frantically.
She ran after the rapidly retreating child, pumping her legs as hard as she could. She flicked her hands and caught the child around the waist with her magical binds. She grunted and dug her feet on the pavement.
Zelda was nearly yanked off the ground. Was this magic?
She grunted and pulled as hard as she could. The veins on her arms throbbed, sweat lined her face. The tug-of-war lasted on seconds.
There was a final yank. Zelda felt her feet fly and crumpled painfully on the pavement. The thing succeeded. The magical binds disappeared.
"No!" Zelda leaped and reached out her hand. Something collided with her face and sent her sprawling back. Her nose broke, blood gushed in her mouth. The little girl's screams continued long after she was dragged into the blazing fire.
No!
Zelda staggered to her feet. She spat blood and blindly ran to the entrance. She could feel her face perspire, the heat singe her hair. She hardly noticed the shadow sliding towards her, engulfing her. A shadow spread over her.
Boots pounded behind her. There was a flash of light. A guttural howl shook Zelda's bones.
Immediately the paralyzing feeling left her once again. Someone grabbed her shoulder and roughly pulled her away from the fire. Zelda reflexively jabbed her elbow in her assailant's ribs. It jammed armor.
A hand wrapped around her waist at the same moment the top of the building collapsed on the bottom floor.
"Look what you did!" Zelda screeched. Arms turned her swiftly around.
"Impa!" Zelda gasped. She fought against the gray-haired woman; Impa still clutched her tightly. "Let me go! We have to save her!" She stared at the fire imploringly.
Flames greeted her vision.
"Zelda-"
"Let me go, dammit!" Zelda roared. Why wasn't Impa trying to help her? Did she want the little girl to die? She could still be in there holed up inside all alone.
"Zelda-"
"Impa, shut up and let Go!" She lashed out a fist. It collided with Impa's jaw. She staggered, bewildered by the sudden blow. Zelda immediately kicked her mentor until she fell.
Zelda was too angry to think. Her chest rising and falling rapidly with each flutter of her turtle-neck. The fire, the peoples' screams, they felt like background noise.
The little girl.
Zelda turned. Impa took the momentary distraction to trip her knees and lock the young woman in an arm-lock, pushing her face on the ground. She increased the pressure until Zelda felt like her shoulder was going to snap.
Zelda turned her face away. Dirt and blood coated her lower jaw. "Impa!"
"Zelda! Enough!" Impa shouted over the peoples' screams.
"No, dammit!" Zelda roared. "We just have to-"
"She's gone!" Impa bellowed. "You'll only waste your life!"
"No..." Tears streaked her face. Zelda blinked them away furiously. "She's alive!"
"No, she isn't." Impa repeated. "Focus! There are still people ALIVE that need our help!" Zelda continued her mindless struggle. Impa tightened her grip. "I will not wait, if you continue to fight I will tie you down and leave you, do you understand?"
Zelda wildly pounded her forehead against the pavement. She immediately regretted it. She felt her forehead split open. Now she had a headache on top of a broken nose. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. She slowly forced herself to relax.
"...Okay."
Impa carefully released her. Zelda pressed her turban against her forehead. Blood coated the bandages instantly.
Impa pushed a small bottle of blue liquid in her hands. Healing solution. Zelda wordlessly tipped the bottle back and drank deeply. Her mouth burned but she ignored it. She wiped her mouth and corked the rest of the mixture in place. She could feel her nose painfully right itself properly and her forehead stitch itself. It was going to take time.
"... now what?" She glanced anywhere but the burning fire or Impa.
Impa was surveying the destruction. She glanced at the floor and crates. She tilted her head and stared at something Zelda couldn't see past the buildings. Her eyes slowly trailed the perimeter. She failed to notice Zelda quickly wipe her eyes behind her back.
Impa's eyes finally met Zelda's. "I have an idea."