UPDATED: Aug. 7th, 2003 - Well, due to the feedback I've received, I've finally decided to update this story, in the hopes of writing a new chapter.

Keep in mind, of course, that this was intended to be a stand-alone work, more of a character study in the last moments of the game than a continuing short novel, and it's with great trepidation that I set out to expand on it. For now, this edit of the first chapter will be my update. It's nothing particularly significant, just some cleaning up, clarifying, and minor additions to set it up more fully for an expanded storyline. I hope to write the new chapter in the next week or so.

Given that I'm expanding and updating it seems only fair to mention, of course, that I don't own Ico, Yorda, and any other related bits from the game ICO. All of that is property of Sony Computer Entertainment America and Fumito Ueda. Standard disclaimer applies; this is a work of love, not a labor for profit.

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Prologue

At first, it was almost like returning from death--a slow, painful reaching towards a surface that seemed impossibly far away. He clawed upwards, trying almost frantically to escape from the clinging darkness.

His awakening occurred in stages. After finally breaking free of the shadows, he gradually became aware of his own existence. His body was still part of him; he was not relieved of it yet, and thus he must still be alive. Next he became aware of the sharp scent of salty air, the breeze against his face, the warmth of what must certainly be sunlight against his skin. Where was he? His brain was cloudy, he wasn't quite sure. He felt the world develop beneath him, his face lying against a rough surface. Wood perhaps?

His ears were the next to revive themselves; the sound of water gradually became audible, becoming louder and louder until he realized he must be very near the sea. His eyes finally opened, the lids shedding the impossible heaviness that had clouded them. The world they opened to was initially only about two feet large, and it took his mind several moments to realize that he was staring at the inside of a boat, its rough, worn surface curving away from him, which he was currently occupying.

He closed his eyes again and shifted, turning over onto his back slowly, his stiff limbs complaining at their forced labor (however slight). He rubbed at his eyes with his hands, trying to somehow spur his brain into activity. How had he gotten here? What had he been doing? It all seemed so fuzzy. He shook his head slightly and sat up, groaning at the effort it took. His whole body seemed fatigued, infinitely tired, begging him to just lay back down to sleep.

When he opened his eyes again, the hazy light of the sky and sand blinded him, and he had to blink for several minutes until he was able to see anything at all. As he did so, the memories came flooding back.

The castle was gone. A quick sweep of the horizon confirmed it.

It was at this point that Ico felt as though he were the only person in the universe. His gaze traced across the peaceful waves, their calm lapping belying the violent events that had so recently taken place. He clambered unsteadily out of the boat and fell clumsily to the ground, unable to move.

"Do not be angry with us. This is for the good of the village."

He remembered those words as if they had been spoken moments before, uttered as the lid of the heavy stone sarcophagus closed, leaving him little more light than that which entered the small slit before his eyes. He had been too confused to be scared, too uncomprehending of what had happened to be angry, and too overwhelmed to shout at them as they turned and walked away. All he had known was that on a day that had started as any other, those strangely-clothed men had suddenly arrived at the house of the village elder and demanded that the boy be turned over to them.

He knew why the elder hadn't argued with them, as he had known all his life, somehow—those two little nubs upon his head had condemned him. He hadn't known to what, for no one spoke of what happened to the horned boys, but he had always been aware of the stares, the glares, the rejection from a community that would never call him their own. He had heard the stories: that once every generation or so a boy like him had appeared. And he knew from personal experience that it was he they chose to blame for every misfortune that befell them.

He would never forget the days when the horns would suddenly grow, sometimes so fast that they bled. It was during these times that his mother would cradle him close to her, wiping away the blood and stroking his hair, wrapping his head in bandages dipped in soothing salve. She would sing to him, quietly, through those long nights—ancient songs in languages he didn't know, her rich contralto soothing him until he slept. She was, he though, probably the only one who really loved him, for even his father could be distant when he remembered the boy's unspoken fate.

The horns…

His hand reached up reflexively to the spot where one had been and touched it gingerly; his head still pounded dully from their sudden and violent removal. The pain had been immense and staggering, his vision blurring and fading into the deep scarlet of righteous anger as the blood ran down his face and pooled on the bluish stones beneath him. He had never been so angry in his entire life; it had consumed him from the time he rose from the floor and hauled the glowing sword from between the stones to that final beautiful-yet-terrible moment when he slid the weapon through her mother's body. And it was all because of her…

"Did they try to sacrifice you too?"

The sarcophagus had fallen, he knew that much, and he had helped to push it. Why it had happened he wasn't sure, but the fact remained that it had toppled end over end and burst open, and he had fallen out onto the floor several feet below, promptly rendered unconscious. He had dreamed, but the dream had escaped him soon after he had awoken, fragile and fleeting, much like the dust motes dancing in the faint torchlight illuminating the massive room. He had stood up, gazed at his surroundings. The room stretched off into the distance, its walls lined with multitudes of standing stone coffins, his the only one out of place, broken upon the ledge. He had known then that he had not been meant to escape, he had been meant to die there in that tomb; it was the mere knowledge that his escape was to be prevented that had driven him to attempt just that.

There was, in fact, no other reason for his endeavor until he had found her—that unearthly girl, trapped like a delicate bird in a cage, suspended high in the circular tower. Looking back, he didn't really understand why he had felt so compelled to rescue her. Perhaps it was because her predicament had been so like his. Perhaps because he felt the almost palpable malevolent purpose of the castle and sought to take anyone he found there away from it. Perhaps simply because she was a girl.

No, he decided; he had felt compelled to release her simply because she existed. The fact that she was in his world but seemed so apart from it, so separate and distinct from her surroundings, was reason enough. It was only later that he would find that without her, his escape would not have been possible at all.

Yorda…

If nothing else remained when he grew old, it was her image and name that would remain forever etched in his consciousness; the unearthly paleness of her skin; the thin, wispy fabric of her dress with its strange patterns; the grace of her every movement. But most of all these were her big, violet eyes, curiously probing the depths of the world around her, one that (it seemed) she had never seen. He was sure of nothing else as thoroughly as this.

His resolve to take her from the castle with him only strengthened when the shadow demons first appeared. He could remember her sudden yelp of surprise and fear as that amorphous mass had grabbed her. He knew at that moment, just as clearly as he knew he had to rescue her, that he had to protect her as well. It was a strange feeling to swing out at those smoky creatures with his wooden staff, to hit at nothing and defeat them. He had pulled her out of those strange portals more times than he could count.

It was her hands, in the end, that were his connection to her; nothing else he was able to do could communicate as much. He had called her, often, but all she had understood of his coaxing cries was that he needed her there. Any other attempt to speak to her met only with that inquisitive but bewildered stare. The first time he had taken her hand, to lead her out of her prison room and get her to safety, he had been too busy worrying about escaping to think any more about it. In more relaxed circumstances however, as they walked through a quiet room or across a peaceful yard, sometimes he took her hand out of reflex, just to know that she was close; it was these times that she had looked down at their link in peaceful affection. When she needed to be helped across a gap or up a ledge, it was invariably his hands that did the talking. When they were tired, she often sat down beside him and rested her head upon his shoulder, their hands linked in peaceful napping.

Never had he felt as committed to someone as he did in those moments; it was then that his resolve to save her from the castle and its demons strengthened. This, of course, made his final failure, so evident to him in the stark loneliness of his present surroundings, all the more crushing.

He remembered the time he had awoken on top of the suspended cages, feeling much the same as he did now. The mental image of that horrible blackness enveloping her, her mother leering at him over her shoulder, until at last she could hold him no longer and that sudden drop had been repeating over and over in his head. At least that time, however, the environment didn't clash so strongly with his mood. He hadn't wanted to move then either, couldn't move, and it had taken a long time to lift up his cold, drenched form in that driving rain. It had been impossible until he'd realized there was a second chance. But now…

He sat up finally, and gazed out over the surface of the ocean. It was hard to believe that the entire structure had disappeared beneath the rippling surface. What was once grand, magnificent, and ominous now gave no trace of its former glory. The queen was dead, and with her the danger to her daughter, but Yorda was not safe. She was not with him. What was the point now? Why had he labored and fought so hard to protect her, to save her as he wanted to save himself, when in the end it didn't even matter? He felt as though he were only half himself, as though a part of him were gone.

Suddenly, the enormity of the events that had so quickly transpired hit him with all the force of a natural disaster. He gasped, the pain enveloping him, a physical force wrapped around his chest like a vise. He let out a sob, and then another, until he was weeping from grief there on the sand, his young form wracked by cries. His grief poured out long and loud on the empty beach. A small flock of seagulls took flight at the sudden noise. He wept for a long time, every hurt from the past coming back to haunt him and be expunged through the tears streaming down his face, until finally he could weep no longer. He lay on the sand for a long time as his breathing returned to normal, and his heart filled with a quiet numbness.

He stood up now; he'd shed his immediate, intense sadness and was finally able to move, despite his creaky limbs. He wiped his eyes roughly on his arm and examined his surroundings. The beach was long and low set against the cliffs inland, which rose nearly straight up several hundred feet to the trees perched upon them.

He took one final look around the beach. It was a blank, blinding white from the sun beating down upon it, and he longed for the cool shade of the forest above him. He didn't know where he would go. Despite the loss of his horns, he knew he could not return to his village even if he knew how to get there. But he knew he had to go somewhere. He hadn't eaten since they had taken him, and his body was quickly making this clear to him.

Blissfully distracted by his immediate needs, he set off for the cliffs.

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And somewhere, further down the beach, a finger twitched and bent, a head lifted itself slowly off the wet sand, and two violet eyes blinked and squinted against the bright sunlight.