Harsh Reality

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By Zel the Stampede

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Chapter 8, throw your hats in the air, computers are much too heavy.

Disclaimer: See chapter 1 if you really want to sue me.

WOW! You guys are so nice! What would I do without you? (I'd have probably quit this story long ago.)

R&R!

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Chapter 8: Through the Looking Glass

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Koume sneered wickedly, tongues of flame dancing over her palm; "I can come up with fifty different ways to cause you intense pain right off the top of my head." Sheik hardened, hunkering down, his razor balanced in one hand, a tiny dagger, edge-slicked in poison, in the other, "Good for you."

Koume was not amused as she knitted her wrinkled brows in an angry scowl. Her eyes livid as the air crackled, cooking the moisture from the atmosphere as things grew hazy. Sparks cracked. The air suddenly ablaze with them; glinting and drifting like little orange fireflies. Koume smirked, fiendish, as she gathered the bits of flame to her open palms, "Fare thy well!"

Sheik dodged, fire hissed past him, sizzling in the air and scorching ugly, black welts on the walls. The little blade flashing a silver arc as he grazed the witch's cheek. The flesh cracked like dry earth, red seeping from the broken skin, stinging fiercely as Koume gingerly touched the gash.

"Poisoned blades," she muttered dully, "You cheat." Sheik veered sharply, eluding a hail of fireballs, before curving round to catch the desert witch across the shoulder. Koume cried out, clutching the wounded area, crimson oozing through her gnarled fingers.

"Quickly, Aife!" Navi urged, shadows falling across their hiding place, "We have to run! Now!"

"Ms. Navi!" Aife sobbed, "She's coming!" Navi grabbed Aife's hand, forcing her along, "Less talking! More running!" she ordered sternly. The fairies skidded over the cobbles, shaken by a sudden explosion. Navi recovered, rolling over and rousing Aife.

"Come on!" she pressed. Aife grimaced, fluttering after Navi, the chamber suddenly wrapped in dry air, dry and cold.

"Navi!" Aife shrieked, terrified, silver flickering off the walls, the air laced with cutting chills. Piercing shards rained down, a deadly shower of glistening ice. Aife gave a cry, suddenly slacking, a solo glimmer speared through her rosy curls as her eyes dilated, widening to dim pools of faded amber. Navi froze, "Aife…"

Navi couldn't move, as every muscle seemed iced over. She couldn't breathe, the oxygen beaten from her lungs. Only watch, distant and aloof, as Aife sank, plunging headlong on the sandy cobbles. She winced as the audible crack sounded that slender neck shattering like a toothpick.

Aife was dead.

Stiff, cold and broken. A porcelain doll smashed and ruined on the stones. Bearing an eerie resemblance to the stiffened Link as silvery liquid slid over the chalky skin, leaking from the glassy eyes.

'No, no…no!' Navi pressed her hands over her ears, "Aife! Aife, wake up!"

Sheik was horribly outnumbered. Kotake had come to join her sibling, charged with the powers of ice. Slumped against his sword as the sorceresses circled, mounted on their brooms, hovering like vicious, shriveled harpies.

"Aife! Aife!" Navi shrieked desperately, shaking the empty fairy roughly, "Oh goddess, Aife, wake up! Please wake up!"

"Trespasser!" Koume accused, a bent finger pointed at the Sheikiah man, "In our temple! For such an act…you must be punished." Fire and ice flew past, brushing his skin with deadly fingertips, the flesh burning and freezing all at once. Sheik straightened, clutching his blade in a shaky hand, crimson botching on his shoulder.

* * *

Malon was nervous, very nervous and very anxious, uncertainty clouding her thoughts. The shadow-incident, whether it was fact or fantasy, shattering any courage she had to her name. Wracking every nerve beyond immediate repair as she settled on a bench in the lobby. Her hands trembling as they sought her coat pocket for that bitter, forsaken comfort, her fingers closed over a crumpled packet of cigarettes and a lighter, she shivered. Aydin would kill her if he knew; everyone would, for she'd raised the semblance that she'd quit, left those nicotine sticks behind. But now, now, it was either a breath of the venomous cigarette fumes to clear her head or else go out and get very drunk.

* * *

Fiery beams and icy lances struck the ground, rattling the foundations. Sheik grimaced, scrambling tirelessly from the deadly assaults, somewhere he'd lost his blade and was now left only with the tiny, poisonous razor.

Navi was quiet, Aife was dead. And her fate seemed to hang like a gray omen in Link's future. 'No…I won't let it, I can't let him die,' Navi vowed stubbornly, 'Link can't die!'

Sheik was still running, the witches still pursuing in an endless game of merry-go-round about the boss chamber. Then Sheik, fatigue hanging off his limbs like dead weights, got tired of running.

Sheik didn't like magic, even as he loosened the bandages tied over his palms, his heart was throbbing in his throat, pulsing with his doubt. Magic, despite the swiftness and sureness of any spell, had too many consequences. Backfires and defects if runes were not uttered properly. Yet, his optimism was waning, one way or another the Hero of Time would have fulfill his destiny and to do that he'd have to be alive.

Every Sheikiah is given a spell, a spell all their own, no two alike, the charms carved in the center of their palms. The hexes were a faded red, like an old scar, power whispering through the jagged lines of marks. Sheik swallowed, he'd used it just once before…and half a village was decimated in the blink of an eye. Energy came as bidden, retreating to the summoning marks like loyal dogs, shivering through his veins. Sheik winced, violet light collecting in his hands.

Navi glanced up, startled by an explosion of brilliance, the luster burning her eyes.

Koume flinched, bracing against the onslaught, glittery needles clawing at her. Kotake gave a cry as she was thrown from her broom and slammed on the cobbles. The light died as instantly as it had come, the Sheikiah sapped of precious energy.

"Sister," Koume growled, weakened grievously by the vicious blow, "it seems our drama cannot be played until its conclusion but we must finish our mission! Kill him, Kotake! Kill him now!" The ice witch crawled shakily to where the lifeless Link lay. Grasping his vulnerable throat in her knotted hands, she squeezed.

* * *

Link saw red, orange and a variety of other colors. Great, smothering eruptions of color, twisting and curling, drawing long stains of black from their knots. Ink that crept over his lips; slithered into the mesh of veins. A whorl of bloody-scarlet intensity was obscuring his sight. That horrible red, pouring into every opening, filling his insides with its hellish shade, choking out the air as it brimmed in his lungs.

A strangled gag tore Link's throat, ghostly hands of nothing sealing off his air passages. He gasped a ragged intake of twisted air, a horrible rasping scarring his windpipes. Link fumbled, and at last, seized the invisible hands which in turn, pressed harder. Iron clamps cutting off oxygen like a knife. Link squinted, tears pricking; everything was shadowy as he fought against the cement grip of the hidden enemy. In the blur of tears and a desperate will to live, Link saw something.

For a moment, a mirror hung before his eyes, shattering as he dug his nails into the flesh of the invisible attacker. A shape appeared, dark and huddled, gradually sharpening into a fuzzy hybrid of human and crow. A queer vulture of a woman, her curled hands tightened about his throat.

"Let go!" Link croaked, wrenching at the witch's hands.

* * *

Aydin knew her far too well. The cigarette packet had been emptied, its contents probably moldering in the septic tank at home. The lighter was vacant of fluid as well. Malon sighed.

* * *

Kotake stiffened, glaring down at the boy struggling strenuously against her grasp.

"H-how? How can you possibly be awake?" she whispered, "No! You have to die!" She toughened, forcing all her strength into crushing the life out of this boy.

* * *

The weight that fell upon Link's neck was like a ton of bricks. Closing the way of breath, the red running over his vision in narrow rivers. The immediate cut-off of oxygen was felt instantly all over his body as circulation staggered to a halt, his brain slowly shutting down as the sapphire irises softened.

* * *

After the discovery of her cigarettes' demise, Malon had taken to wandering casually about the asylum. The clinic's cream-white corridors were eerily quiet. Coated in a thick layer of disturbing silence and unusually deserted of staff, even the patients were soundless. Malon grimaced, soaking the empty clinic with her scrutiny. It was almost as if time itself had come screaming silently to an abrupt halt.

She rounded a corner, passing down empty halls lined with empty rooms. The entire asylum was setting new standards for emptiness. Then out of the emptied air, came a voice, strangled and raspy, "Let go!" The remaining words were lost in the sounds of a struggle purling through the noiseless halls. Malon ran, dashed over the speckled tiles to the source of the sound.

231.

231.

Malon stifled a gasp, hearing the distinct 'thuck!' of a body crashing on the floor. She gave the doorknob a mighty wrench, yanking the portal open. Link Riles lay unconscious on the tiles, dead to the world.

He had no pulse. Malon went rigid; he had no pulse. Was he…dead? An allergic reaction to the drugs perhaps?

The clinic came alive again; nurses emerged from the air, suddenly crowding her and the stiff young man. Malon felt detached from the scene, even as she heard herself say, "Back off! Give him some room!"

Her hands ran the familiar route of CPR, pressing and releasing, trying to jumpstart the stilled heart. Worry seeping into her confidence as she closed her lips over his mouth, why wasn't he waking up?

* * *

Sheik grunted, smashing into the wall after being hurled across the room. Koume was huffing, her attacks eating away steadily at her reserve of energy.

"Let him go!" Navi yelled in the witch's ears, attempting to slash at her huge eyes with the microscopic fairy knife. Kotake growled and swatted at the pale blue pest.

"Get away from me, nuisance!" Navi gave a cry as Kotake's claw struck her senseless, sending the fairy sliding over the platform. Navi flinched, the red fairy's silver gauze snapping like twigs, the glinting fragments stabbing her damaged wing. 'I'm sorry…'

Sheik gulped, a wayward fireball almost incinerating his left arm. Koume snarled, prowling the chamber from atop her broom, "Damn Sheikiah, I'll kill you yet…" Sheik's available arson had shrunk considerably, according to his most recent count, he had one poisoned sickle-knife, his newly recovered sword, and a few Deku nuts. Oh lucky.

"Damn you!" Koume hissed, unleashing a storm of fiery coals, "Stubborn as a cockroach!" Sheik shrugged as he sheltered behind a pillar, he'd been called worse things. That one could actually be a rather ironic compliment.

The pillar shook, fire devouring the stones. Fleeing was getting repetitive and Sheik hated being repetitive. He swallowed a gulp of oxygen and leapt up on the platform, sword unsheathed, the sickle stored away in his pocket for a rainy day or a murder whichever came first.

Navi roused weakly, gingerly arranging her flimsy bones into a sitting position. If Link was pale before, he was gray now and Navi screamed, "Sheik please! Help Link!"

Koume snared the fairy in a cruel glower and barked, "Shut up, you little-" Kotake gasped, pained, her sister was horrified. A bloody sword jutted from her back, red pooling on the ground as Kotake's hold loosened and she fell.

"SISTER!" Koume screeched; grief mingled with rage at the sight of the corpse, freshly bloodied. 'Sister…' Koume wept, piteous silver tears welled in her eyes, 'my sister…'

"Damn you, you killed her!" Koume seethed, her tears scorched away by the surge of heat, "She's dead. Because of you. DAMN YOU!" Glowing spirals lashed around her as Koume cried, her grief threatening to cut her open, "For my sister…you will burn."

Blazing scourges beat the ground as Navi whimpered, tears gathering in her own eyes. She tugged Link's collar, "Wake up, Link! Wake up! We've got to escape!" she sobbed.

* * *

For the second time that day, Malon wanted to cry. Pressing aimlessly as tears formed in her blue eyes, 'Oh god…he's not waking up…he's…'

"Come on!" she swallowed a sob, pressing harder, "Wake up! Breathe!"

End of chapter 8

I imagine you all wish to kill me for that cliffhanger. Just remember this, dead authors can't write.

Zel

Coming Soon:

Chapter 9: The Puzzle Ring

P.S. Chapter Nine is loooooooong. Might take a bit longer than previous chapters. (Then again maybe not, you never know.)