Chapter 25: Never the Same Twice

…

Link had seen his fair share of long work days and long non-work days. This day passed by much slower than either of those. Sending his crew to shore to take care of errands was not unfamiliar to him; sometimes, Leynne had had to remind him that his crew existed for that very reason. But with the Night looming within the island and the new understanding that it was not going to release his ship so easily, Link had been left with the bad feeling that something would happen to his crew out there. He spent the afternoon trying to push away every dark thought he could have, now wondering if the Night had gotten the idea for the storm from either him or someone else on his crew. Seeing the night crew on the deck helped alleviate his worrying, but he was far from willing to relax.

The ship's lights were on by the time the Conductor's familiar whine permeated the air. Link instantly dashed across the deck from the forecastle, hollering to Lwamm, Twali, and Layna in Hylian by mistake. However, the deck crew already knew by now what to do when the launch was returning. He, Layna, and Lwamm stepped up onto the poop deck and grabbed a staff from the rack at the front of the deck while Twali was already waiting near the transom with another staff. Link moved to the starboard side, and together they used their staves to direct the Conductor into the boat deck without letting its hull hit the large opening in the poop deck. The party on the Conductor looked to be unharmed by the Night, although Airmen Brandon and Hunter were leaning over the side of the launch's bulwark. Link sighted the Conductor's braces once it was in the boat deck and signaled to Twali to push it forward a bit while he nudged the stern. The Island Symphony gave a slight shudder, and Gold, at the pilot's station of the boat, signaled with a thumb that they had had a good landing.

Link rushed to replace his staff and descended to the quarterdeck. He hauled the doors to the boat deck aside so he could enter. "Leynne," he called as he rounded the boat on one side.

For a moment, only Brandon's and Hunter's groaning answered. Then Leynne, having erroneously stepped to the wrong side of the boat, approached Link after correcting himself. "Yes, Captain," he answered.

"What did you find?"

Leynne heaved an exhausted sigh. "Well, ouh infohmation was right: theh ah mines on the opposite side of the island." He dusted his shirt off as if to emphasize their existence. "The area around the tunnels looks to have been abandoned foh a good numbeh of yeahs. We've found a few stohs of coal should the need arise."

"And the rations?"

At this, Leynne took in a deep breath, his face telling Link that he would rather not relay what they had found. "We… we suspect that theh may have been stohs foh them as well. They'h empty now, but we found a few packages labeled in Hylian scattehed inside the tunnels." He turned around. "Dubbl?" Dubbl had just stepped to their side of the boat deck. She pulled a satchel from her shoulder, dug into it, and offered Leynne a cloth sack. Leynne then passed the sack to Link as he explained, "We only found two of these still untouched. A small jah of fruit presehves, some nuts… the jehky is definitely inedible, but the rest of the packages should be viable. They ah not much, but they should keep us from stahving all the way back to Hyrule."

"Do you need help bringing them back?" Link asked while he inspected the interior of the sack.

"I think the crates ah much fuhtheh in the tunnels," Leynne told him. "We found drag mahks.

"They lead right to the Night." Link raised a shocked look, but Leynne quickly held up a hand. "As soon as we found it, we retuhned to the Conductoh. None of us have been hahmed, but we ah left with a problem. If theh ah crates of rations in the tunnels, we must have the Night out of the way."

Link sighed and covered his eyes with a hand. "I don't believe this…"

"Yes, it would seem that the Night is holding the rations hostage," Leynne said. He crossed his arms as he added, "And it seems to latch onto every bad thought we have. I'm afraid that my own concehns about being caught in this stohm may have been the Night's inspiration."

Link shook his head. "There're plenty of crewmen here that feared the storm long before you, Leynne. The idea could've come from any of them."

"Oy, Cap'n." Link glanced around Leynne at Gold. Gold was pointing up.

Link followed the direction of Gold's finger to Brandon and Hunter. "You two gonna be all right?" he asked.

"So long as we don't have to fly on this thing again," Hunter said as he pushed up from the bulwark. Brandon nodded in agreement before he belched and put a hand over his mouth.

"Be cahful," Leynne warned. "It's bad luck to vomit on a captain."

"Yes, sir," Hunter said. "That's page two of the manual after 'no riding aboard launches made by a drunken idiot'."

"Think I skipped that page," Gold commented with a grin as he walked by Leynne and Link.

"Go down below and get what dinner you can stomach," Link told the two airmen above. "Hunter, you have a post to man as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir," Hunter replied. He nudged Brandon's shoulder. "C'mon, let's go choke something down."

Link turned back to Leynne. "Did you guys happen to pass over Line and Cale? They should've been coming back, too."

"From the library?" Leynne asked. Link nodded. "I can't say we spotted anyone, but we wehn't exactly looking. I wouldn't wohry, though; the Night still has a few moh houhs to wake up."

"I told them to be back before dark," Link said, glancing up out of the deck. "They need to get moving."

"Would you like me to send someone to retrieve them?" Leynne asked.

Link shook his head. "If they take a different path here, whoever you send might miss them. If they're not back by the time the island starts to go black, I'll look for them myself; I can cover more ground."

Leynne nodded. "If you say so."

…

As much as Link had figured Line and Cale would not be back until sometime after dark, he was glad to see them running for the ship not too long after Leynne's party had returned. Their report was brief: Line hated it, Cale hated it, and Irleen hated it, all simply because they did not believe the library to have been empty. Irleen decided to go to bed afterwards, but Link told Line and Cale that, with the night approaching, they would be better off waiting for it to pass before trying to get in at least a short nap. As he could expect, Cale agreed with the logic while Line complained that he was tired and sweaty. It had been a brief complaint before Line chose to get a late dinner rather than argue the point with Link.

Link retired to his cabin for a bit now that his crew had reassembled. The storm added a subtle shutter to the room with each burst of thunder, and Link could not decide whether he would prefer the thunder or the silence. He knew he probably would not be hearing the sounds of crew talking outside his cabin for a while yet, cowed as they had been by every little bit of information they had learned about the Night.

~~Same day, about 2000.

~~As much as I don't like letting my crew wander around this insane asylum of an island, I'm always glad to know they can keep themselves safe. Leynne took a landing party to the north side of the island to look at the mines. He reported that these rations that—I don't know what to call her anymore. I guess "Logan" will have to work. The rations she told us about were there, just like she said. The problem is the Night got to them first. Or maybe it had them from the beginning; I don't know. It comes down to now knowing that, as soon as I clear up the river, I'll have to check out those mines next.

~~Since the Night killed me in that last dream and I woke up injured, I'll be sleeping in the sick bay tonight so that Doctor Nester can keep an eye on me. I have to admit that I'm a little worried. I don't know what killed me last night. If it's still around this time, I'll have to react much faster to avoid it.

…

Link brought his gear into the sick bay and left it laid out on one of the beds so that he could get ready as soon as he was asleep. But then, he found it hard to get to sleep afterwards. Images of his beheading and phantom stabs of pain around his neck made it hard for him to relax. Having to sleep in the sick bay, with the acrid scent of disinfectant lingering forever, only added to his discomfort. At one point, he thought his skin was starting to dissolve in the substance. Nester slept in his own bed near the back of the sick bay, although he had told Link that he would be trying to remain awake as per Link's previous orders.

After what felt like hours of rolling around in the bed, he flopped onto his back and looked at the blackness where the ceiling should have been. He sighed and asked, "Am I asleep yet, Nester?" What sounded like chewing noises answered him, hinting that the doctor might still be asleep.

"Nope."

Link heaved another sigh at the sound of Nester's voice. Then he frowned at the darkness and reached for the overhead lamp. His peripheral vision revealed someone sitting in the doctor's chair so he turned in response.

He jumped upon perceiving a wide pair of amber eyes and a large, sharp-toothed smile.

"Ah-HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Janni laughed as she leaned back in the chair so that she could kick her feet in glee.

Link scrambled against the bulkhead. Once his surroundings started registering, he took in a breath to calm himself. "Don't you have anything better to do?" he asked in an annoyed tone.

"Not since you showed up," Janni told him while her chair froze on its two back legs instead of falling over. She crossed her legs and leered at him. "So. Your little jaunt down to the river didn't go as expected."

"No, really?" Link asked as he stood up. He grabbed the lampshade and angled it toward the bed on which he had left his gear. "I'd call being beheaded from behind very unexpected."

"You wanna know what the best part was?"

Link picked up his sword and slung it over his shoulder. "I left a bloody mess on the floor?"

"Hmmm… yeah, now that you mention it, it was a spectacular mess. I loved the splat of neck blood on the wall." Link ignored her while he put his gear on, which included his flare gun and the small spike hammer he had received from Sello. Janni rose out of the chair, floated across the sick bay, and descended in front of Link upside-down so that Link backed away from her awkward appearance. "But no, that wasn't it."

Link stared at her for a moment. "Well, I'm not really interested in asking."

"I think you should," Janni said, turning sideways so that she hovered over the bed.

"Okay then," Link said before crossing his arms. "What was it?"

Janni gave a smug look and crossed her own arms. "You walked right past it. The thing that decapitated you was that statue."

"The statue!?" Link snapped in disbelief.

Janni nodded, her grin widening. "An Armos," she explained. "A statue with a mind of its own. One that's usually set to 'kill whoever walks in front of me'."

Link felt around his neck with one hand. "I'll have to remember that," he told himself.

Janni's shrug seemed indifferent. "If you say so." She floated to Link's side, causing him to turn to follow her, and set foot on the deck. "So. Shall we go watch you die again?"

Link glared at her, angry at first, but then it turned determined as he picked up the Dreamweaver's Shield and put it on his arm. "I'll be ready for it," Link told her. "This time'll be different."

Janni waited for him to walk past. Then she mumbled to herself with a slight edge of glee, "You have no idea…"

…

Link took a quick survey of his crew before he left. As he feared, more than half of them had fallen asleep by the time the Night rose. At this point, he could only pray that what he was about to do would draw attention away from them before something happened.

He ran full speed across the open area surrounding the settlement and then leapt from rooftop to rooftop in the same manner as he had done last night. Janni, who had gone quiet, floated along like a balloon that had been tied to Link. While he had to admit that this strange sort of silent treatment from her was unnerving, he quickly decided that he preferred it to having to listen to any more of the gruesome thoughts that went through her head. He was relieved to find that she had not hidden the river from him this time and followed the sounds of screaming Obeetans to the open well.

He peered into the well and frowned at it. "This… doesn't feel right," he said aloud.

"Wells can have that effect on people," Janni replied.

Link looked up to find her standing on the well's lip opposite from him. "I guess I should say it doesn't look right," he explained. "This well was well-lit last night, but it's almost pitch-black now."

"I don't know why you would expect it to be lit down there," Janni pointed out. "It's a well. It's not like anyone goes inside."

"And yet, the Night likes to put little surprises in there for people," Link told her with a flat look.

"If you had to look at the same cave for decades on end, I'm sure you'd wanna do some decorating, too."

Link stood up and pulled out his flare gun. In the odd, pulsing light of the streets, he picked out a green flare and loaded it. "This oughta help," he told no one as he replaced the gun. He hauled himself onto the well and carefully dropped inside. He was immediately swallowed by darkness so thick that he had no idea what was underneath him.

Ke-SPAAAAASH! Link quickly found himself submerged in water. The shock of the cold and the surprise of landing in water caused him to take in a breath, awarding him with lungs almost full of water until his reflexes screamed at him to stop. He could not see anything, blinded by both the dark and the stinging sensation of water in his eyes. His limbs flailed in attempt to find something to latch onto. Once the shock wore off, he could see through the water a shimmering glow above him. His lungs screaming in pain, he started kicking for the surface. In spite of the surprise landing, Link found that he was actually quite shallow once his head broke the surface. He coughed out as much water as he could. At the same time, he saw solid land just out of reach. He swam forward and buried his fingers in cold mud. The bank was steep, so he had to haul himself out of the water. He continued to cough water out of his burning throat, the sensation of needing to vomit slowly rising. However, once his lungs felt clear, he was gasping for breath while staring down at a ground he could barely see through blurry eyes.

"Hmm… Might wanna watch out for that first step."

Link finally brought his breathing under control and looked up at Janni, who hovered nearby in her fairy form. "You could've warned me," he said with a raspy voice.

"I've been warning you about plenty," Janni replied as she lowered herself to eye-level with him. "You don't really seem to listen that well."

"When did you warn me about this?" Link asked.

"Two nights ago, while you were in the library."

Link slowly rose to his feet as he tried his best to remember their conversation two nights ago. He knew he had learned a lot from Janni in the past two nights, but when was it that she had told him that he would fall into a river?

Once his head was up, he realized that the river might not have been what she was referring to. The corridor of gold was gone. Instead, he realized he stood on the bank of a winding river surrounded by a thick forest. The shapes of the trees seemed to twist in the dark, forming limbs and leaves that looked nothing like trees Link had seen before. Overhead, the roof of the cave he knew he stood in had been replaced by an almost blank sky. The moon hung about where he had fallen in, its lower half masked by cloud. Insects chirped nearby, one kind a quick rattle every few minutes while another was a high-pitched screech that lasted much longer between rests.

Link's right hand tightened around the strap on the Dreamweaver's Shield. "What was it that you warned me about?" he asked.

"That the Night doesn't like to do the same thing twice," Janni said, her voice even this time. "You said that you'd be ready if it decided to slice your head off again. It won't do that unless it runs out of ideas. And it looks like drowning you got crossed off the list, too."

Link glanced back at the river. Then he looked in the direction he was sure the opening to the technoworks should be. "It didn't really try that hard," he pointed out as he drew his flare gun.

"True," Janni conceded. "I guess you can't count things out that easily."

He considered shooting a flare along the riverbank so that he had a little more light. But now that his eyes were adjusted, it seemed to him to be a waste of a flare, and he only had eight of them on his belt. So he replaced the flare gun for now. "Okay," he said more to mentally prepare himself. He took a deep breath, his throat still scratchy but feeling much better without having to cough out water. "Let's go."

He started forward, keeping close to the river so that he would catch sight of anything trying to ambush him from the woods. After the first turn in the river, he considered that he might also be attacked by something from the river and moved until he strode on a middle path between the trees and the water. The walk felt hard since his clothes were drenched and heavy. He checked his gear as he continued and found that the spike hammer had slipped from its usual perch tucked under his gun belt. He hoped that he would not need it.

As he walked, he tried to keep track of his progress. Two bends had gone by, but he felt that he should have gone much further than that. He had to remind himself of the trick the Night had pulled on him in the Ghini room two nights before. For all he knew, he might simply be stepping in place while the Night gave him the illusion that he was moving.

Janni gave a disappointed sigh while he was thinking about this. He grinned to himself as he asked, "You getting bored?"

"I gotta admit it," Janni replied. "The Night seems to be taking its time with this next one. How long have we been following this river?"

"Hour, maybe," Link said. "I should've brought a watch; I could've timed how long it took to get from the well to the opening." He indicated the opposite bank with his free hand. "It should be along there somewhere."

"All these woods, and not a threat in sight," Janni bemoaned.

"Maybe the Night decided to take it easy this time," Link pointed out. "You're always interested in what kinda gruesome things it's gonna try killing me with. It probably takes just as much pleasure out of it, and it didn't wanna end the night that fast."

"Maybe," Janni agreed. "But still! This is killing me!"

"Really?" Link asked. "I thought it was supposed to kill me."

Janni suddenly stopped in mid-air, and Link nearly fell over trying the same thing when she disappeared from his peripheral vision. He turned with words already on his tongue to ask her what was wrong.

Then she snorted. "I can't believe you said that," she told him with a hint of laughter in her voice. "I thought I was supposed to be the grim one."

Link gave her half a grin. "Can't walk around down here without being at least a little gloomy."

"You might want to watch it, Link. You just might start acting like me."

Link frowned and turned his head. "Is… something going on?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"The bugs," Link said, looking toward the forest. "They stopped chirping."

"Yeah. So?"

Link slowly closed his left hand over the white sword's hilt. "Well, unless they decided to finally go to sleep," he told her in a softer voice, "something's gotta be going on."

"Really? Is this something you learned from experience?"

"Nope. Just a gut reaction. I think I liked it when they were making noise." He began sidestepping with his eyes still focused on the forest, trying to spy something in the darkness between tree trunks. "Let's keep moving. Maybe it'll pass if we just go."

"And if it doesn't?" Janni asked as she floated in his wake with a soft rock in her glide.

"Well, I think I'm planning to run this time," Link told her.

K-chink!

"Agh!" Link suddenly cried out in response to a sharp line of pain in his left leg above his ankle. He looked down at the same time he tried to pull away.

He found that his ankle had been caught between a pair of jaw-shaped metal slats, firmly interred in the ground to keep him from escaping.

Link put both hands on his thigh and tugged on his leg. "A trap?!" he hollered, partially in pain and partially in disbelief. "It caught me in a trap?!"

"Guess you gotta watch where you're walking around here," Janni remarked as she circled him. "Hmm. Annoying, but hardly deadly."

"Yeah, well, it's got my leg," Link snapped. "I gotta wake up with this pain now!"

Janni turned toward the woods. "Hey, do you hear something?"

Link was slow in responding to Janni's comment. Then he settled his struggle for a moment so that the metal trap would not rattle. In the eerie silence of the surrounding wood, Link was only keen on three sounds. One was his heartbeat, a dull throb that felt like it could pop his eardrums out of place at any moment. His breathing dominated this, his harried gasps the result of panic.

Panic, because the third sound was a low growl the likes of which he had heard before. His eyes darted back and forth between trees, looking for the lithe, fur-covered body of a wild Wolfos.

His left hand carefully settled on the hilt of his sword. Nothing appeared to be in immediate sight, so he drew the sword and, with a few fleeting glances down at the trap so that his eyes were not entirely distracted from the woods, slid the blade in between the trap's teeth. Once the tip was in, Link placed his hands on the pommel so that he could push the sword in order to use the blade's width to wedge the trap open. One push, eyes on the trees. Twice, and then, again, his eyes focused on the trees. One more.

Ktak. The trap snapped open.

"Yes…" Link hissed in quiet victory.

He had forgotten the trees for a moment.

His only clue to the ambush was the snarl, allowing him a tenth of a second to realize with horror what he had just done. Heat drew lines across his neck, and a large body slammed into him hard. The sword free of his hand, he landed sideways on the ground with his left shoulder almost buried in the river's muddy shore underneath him. The weight that had struck him felt as if it had rolled off, so he quickly looked up toward where he had been sure the attacker had landed.

Moonlight reflected off a body that, in shape, was definitely a Wolfos. In composition, it was harder for Link to comprehend. Instead of fur covering its scrawny build, it looked to him like tree branches or vines had come together to form the creature. The moon washed out their color, but Link could see bundles of some type of plant matter, most of them as thick as his wrist, silently writhing across the Wolfos' body. Smaller features, such as claws and ears, looked to have been made of shapes of tree bark. As Link rolled onto his knees, he realized that the Wolfos had lowered its head toward the ground, its teeth bare but its voice not making a sound. It turned its head slightly, allowing its drool to shimmer in the moonlight.

But… how was the Wolfos drooling when it was not made of flesh and bone? Link rubbed the pain on his neck as he pondered. His fingers found warm liquid, which he then observed in the light.

Red.

The Wolfos was not drooling, he realized with horror. That was Link's own blood dribbling down its jaw.

Link quickly made to stand. His head began spinning the moment he had one foot pressed to the ground. He felt around his neck. The blood made his fingertips wet and slippery, but he found the deep gashes on the sides of his neck where the Wolfos' teeth had sunk in. All sound, whatever was left of it, disappeared as his heart began beating in his ears. He knew he had to act. But his vision and his mind began to cloud, the Wolfos waiting patiently before him. He put all of his strength into rising to his feet. His foot slipped, and he caught himself on all fours before his face could land in the mud. He used his left hand to press against the gashes in his neck as best as he could, hoping to stave off blood loss long enough to get away.

Something jagged settled on either side of his head, just above his ears. Just as he realized that the Wolfos was making its next move, he felt his neck twist with a rich crack.

Link's entire body gave out. He had no sensation in his arms or legs, no ability to control his hands or feet. His perspective lowered to the ground. He watched with eyes slowly unfocusing as more Wolfos stalked out of the trees. His vision wobbled, and he heard something tearing nearby. Then everything before him was a large, grey blur. He attempted to speak, but his voice came out as an indistinct wheeze amid a new, much more horrifying sound: chewing.

Link wanted to retch. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run. Just the thought of it was too much; knowing that it was exactly what was happening to him drove him mad.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!"

With a jolt, Link could see, feel, hear, smell, and scream again. And he screamed with all his might, even after rolling off the bed. Even after hands grabbed him to pin him against the deck.