Electricity crackled through the pixels that made up the walls. The floor had cracks that dropped towards an endless void. Around the room, city roads spiralled from the floor to the ceiling with trees hanging upside-down as if gravity had no hold on them. O'Donnell ambled forward, looking for an explanation to everything. Houses materialised beside him in rows. Glancing down, a sidewalk built itself beneath his feet.
The figure of a blonde girl in a purple cardigan and skirt appeared before him, made up from the pixels floating in the area. She'd been glancing around as if searching for someone. In an instant, the image of young Link formed from the same specks as if out of thin air, and he rushed up towards her.
"Zella, wait for me!"
She stopped and turned around, scoffing lightly when she saw him beside her. Halting into a stop, Link started panting, resting his hands on his knees.
"You're late," she said, her voice quieter even though it still held her usual, affirmative tone. "I thought I was going to have to walk home by myself."
He spoke between breaths. "Sorry 'bout that." The moment he caught his breath, his eyes widened. "Wait, home? Didn't you say your folks weren't back yet? No one would be there."
"I know." Then it went silent from there as they continued walking.
Soon, Link snapped his fingers. "Have you ever been outside of town before? There's a really nice place near here."
"Really? You mean it?"
"I can show you if you like, but what 'bout your folks? Won't you get in trouble if you aren't back by curfew?"
Zella held his hand. "Show me."
O'Donnell then heard crackles from behind him. He turned around. In the distance was the stone-brick house Link had lived in when they'd first met, the door wide open. Curious, he walked over there and entered inside.
Meanwhile, Lombardi continued punching in codes into his handheld, taking care not to step on any of the cracks and electricity running along the ground. Looking up, the scene in front of him was a partial snow plain. Both sides of the area had a cutoff where floating pixels left them unbuilt.
Two figures ran past him from behind: a small, brunette girl in a pink parka and the green-coated, blond boy she was pulling along—the young Link, but no hat. A Pikachu ran beside them, following along.
"Naia, where are we going?" Link asked, his breaths forming into mist.
She turned her head around, only to shoot him a cheeky grin before turning back, holding his hand tighter. Each pant they both made clouded into the air, and the two ran out of sight like a steam train, out of the limits of what the scene allowed Lombardi to see.
Expecting to see the inside of a house, O'Donnell instead found himself looking at a hospital ward. Two rows of single beds stretched towards the door at the end in front of him, a few curtains in between separating some of them. The sound of heart monitors beeped in the room. Beep. Beep. Beep. He turned around, but all that was there was a grey wall; the door he came in from was gone.
"I knew you'd be seeing my way soon enough."
O'Donnell turned around. A flash of pixels made the image of the Beeping Man appear standing on a bed. Then he disappeared in the same instance. Weird, O'Donnell thought. The Beeping Man didn't come from this memory, so he shouldn't be here.
"Surprised to see me? Well, you shouldn't be."
Behind a curtain to his left, O'Donnell saw the spiky, red-headed drunk from the wedding memory. The drunkard smirked before disappearing too.
What was going on?
As O'Donnell walked forward, he started to notice cracks within the curtains and walls liked glass, pitch-black where holes had formed.
"What's wrong with them?"
He turned around again, but this time, there stood the young Link with a sliding door behind him. A closer look, his face was the palest O'Donnell had ever seen, dark circles and bags under his eyes, a familiar green cap sitting on his head. The oddest thing of all, he didn't look sad. Only emotionless, a blank face. This must've been the start to everything, why Lombardi and he were hired to begin with. But O'Donnell wasn't at the root of it all. Not yet.
Behind Link, a doctor walked in—his face blurred—putting a hand on his shoulder.
He looked up. "Are they going to wake up?"
The doctor shook his head. Link's face darkened, and he stared straight ahead, as if looking directly not at O'Donnell, but though him. O'Donnell shuddered a bit before walking towards the door behind Link and into the hallway.
Meanwhile, Lombardi had continued playing around with his handheld's buttons. He pressed a few more when his screen went red, and the bars on it raced up and down. Soon he realised it wasnt the TD that had problems; it was Link. How much damage was his mind taking? Had his brain worn out in the process?
Soon he looked up and was left speechless from what he saw.
Chunks of different memories blended together like mismatched puzzle pieces. A tree with Naia climbing on it sat in the centre of the flower shop where he and O'Donnell got separated. "Then again, why would I want to forget?" Lombardi heard someone say to his left. The man he remembered from that same flower shop stood in the middle of a sea of people who were using sign-language with each other. Then the man disappeared, floating pixels lingering where he stood.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed a flash of yellow. He turned to his right, spotting a prancing Pikachu scampering along a red carpet. His gaze followed it towards two rows of white pillars lining across an endless road, similar to the ones in the wedding memory. On top of each one were not the baskets of roses and tulips like before, but vases of purple flowers, the same ones Link was holding when they saw him at the lake by the grave. Lombardi followed the Pikachu through the path.
"It's not about me; it's never been about me."
Behind one of the pillars was the woman he and O'Donnell had seen, but he didn't recognise her outfit or words. She must've been from one of the memories that O'Donnell had seen, not him.
"It's about you."
Then she disappeared as well, the same way the flower shop man did.
And to think after all this time, they still never learned her name.
As Lombardi continued walking between the pillars, he noticed that the path led into the open grass field between the cliff and the small town. It was as wide as he remembered seeing it when he first passed it on his way to Link's house. Glancing back to the front, the Pikachu hadn't been running anymore.
It was laying on the dirt road, lifeless on its side.
An image of Naia hovered over the body, tears falling from where she stood. Another figure, Zella, held her in a hug, whispering: "It was an accident. Nobody meant to hit it…" Link stood behind them, a blank stare on his face, that green cap flopping pathetically on his head. With a look like that, it could've been Link for all he knew that killed it. Then he remembered that O'Donnell almost hit one when they first arrived at the cliff. Those poor yellow rats, always causing trouble for themselves wherever they went.
Then the clang of bells caught his attention.
O'Donnell walked through a long corridor where to his left were an endless row of sliding doors and his right with parallel windows, each with a dull light beamed through each one. Between them were a couple of chairs for waiting visitors and a table with a vase of lilacs, exactly like the one in Link's house, only there were many of them this time. The pattern continued on: chairs, table, window, and so on.
An image of the young Link from earlier was sitting on one of the chairs staring at the vase of lilacs beside him. The door in front of him opened, and a doctor walked out.
"Can I see them?" Link said.
The doctor nodded, and he ran past him. Then the image of the two crackled into static before disappearing.
The damage to Link's memory was worse than he thought. And where was Lombardi? The memory fusions must've split them into different time periods—if there were any "time periods" to go by. As he continued walking, a light at the end of the hall started getting closer and closer. The echoes of bells sounded louder the nearer he got.
When he walked into the light, a familiar scene flashed out at him. Trion Lake glimmered within the centre of the a forest. Bells echoed in the area, but he didn't know where they were coming from. Walking forward, a bright spark came from the side, and Lombardi stumbled out of it.
"There you are," O'Donnell said. "Think you can get all of this fixed?"
Even without him saying anything, Lombardi was already jamming the buttons on his handheld. "I've been trying the entire time. It's not the machine; it's Link. His mind can't withstand being influenced by the TD for too long."
"We need to go on a little longer. We're almost at where it all started." Then he took a deep breath. "Restart the system."
"What? But boss—"
"Restart the system." He spoke slower this time. "That's an order, Lombardi."
Lombardi's mouth had opened, but upon seeing O'Donnell's stare, he didn't say another word. So he started playing around with his handheld again, inputting codes longer than O'Donnell could recognise.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed some pixels crackling by the lake. In front of him was the young Link in his green hat and matching tunic. O'Donnell walked towards him, and Link pointed forward. He glanced in that direction. A tombstone looked back at him. It was decorated with lilacs.
"It was my fault," Link said. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone."
Giggling soon sounded from the side. An image of Naia in a parka and another Link—without his hat—appeared, the both of them stopping near the lake.
"Is this what ya wanted to show me, Naia? It's really pretty."
She nodded, keeping a strong grip on his hand before pulling him into a run around the lake. Then the image of the two disappeared the way the rest had.
"I was right there," the Link with the hat continued. "No one would've gotten hurt if I had done something."
From the opposite end, Zella materialised behind yet another Link, who had run up towards the water and turned around, a cheeky grin on his face.
"See? An actual, quiet and nice place outside of town."
Zella's mouth hung slightly agape as she glanced around. "All right, I believe you. It's gorgeous, the lake." She walked up behind Link. "That cliff we hiked down earlier was really pretty as well though. Maybe next time, we can head there instead?"
"Sure, if you like. The view from there is nice too. Glad to see you like it here!"
She glanced down at his feet. "Those flowers, are they lilacs?"
He looked. "I don't know. Are they?"
"I think so. What are they doing here though? I don't think they grow in this kind of area, but it looks like someone planted them there. Lilacs mean 'first love,' you know."
"And who did you learn that from?"
"You already know who."
O'Donnell watching, he heard her tell Link a name when Lombardi called out his name. He glanced over his shoulder, saying to him "I'll be right there" by nodding before turning back around. However, Zella and the hatless Link were gone. Even the young Link that did wear the cap disappeared as well.
"I'm set to do the Restart," Lombardi said as he walked over to where O'Donnell stood. "You ready?"
He nodded. "Let's go."
O'Donnell continued to stare at the lakefront when Lombardi pressed the button, making the sides start to deteriorate into loose pixels and darkness. All that was left before everything disappeared was the tombstone, except this time, the lilacs were gone.
It wasn't your fault, Link. It's not your fault.
