Ico
II : Acquaintance
Had it not been for the two horns protruding from his head, Ico would've never fallen to such a fate. In his home village, a new birth was enough to cause a great celebration; however, every generation, a child would be born with horns, considered to be part of an ancient curse that continued to the present day.
Such a child was immediately outcast from society- if something bad were to befall the village the child was blamed and punished. They were the few never to receive friendship, or true care, other than the bare minimum. As such, these children were raised until they hit the twelfth year of living, and then were ceremoniously brought to the island fortress, to be sealed eternally and forgotten until the start of the next generation. The tradition had gone on for centuries, and would probably continue on for years to come.
While lying underneath the cold slab of stone, which had once made up his casket, Ico's mind had drifted off into the land of dreams. The conditions had, however, skewed the usual flow of dreams from their usual path, making them much darker, colder, and real.
In a dark tower that reached up to the thundering heavens, the boy saw himself scaling the round staircase. Outside each narrow window, the fury of nature could be seen at it's worse, as the dark sea frothed and the sky split asunder with lightning. The climb seemed endless, but at the very top, a door could be seen, a final chance of freedom.
Continuing the climb, he was startled to find a huge cage, suspended from the ceiling, hanging down in the middle of the room. The black iron was carved ornamentally, but it was worn from use. Staring in silence, he saw what could only be described as a shadow, or a dark pool, start to rise in the bottom of the cage. The substance began to rise up, and started to run out the sides, dripping heavily onto the floor below.
Slowly, a thin and slender figure rose up from the pool, dripping with darkness, it's form reshaping in all sorts of ways. It stood, silent, immobile, as Ico stared in silent, disgusted fascination; little did he know of the shadow forming behind him. It spread out below him, and suddenly pulled him in with a yank- with a final scream, he was swallowed into the darkness.
Eyes snapping open, with cold sweat dotting across his skin, Ico returned to reality with a start. After regaining his senses, he found himself in an entirely new room, one that still had the silence of death hanging within it.
Glancing about the room, he noticed rows upon rows of sarcophagi-like cases were staring down at him. Each was made from dark stone, with pictographs inscribed against their surfaces.
"That's what they put me in..." Rubbing the side of his head, just avoiding the beginning of his horn, he walked up to the nearest one, noticing a small, circular window just below the 'head' of the carving. Standing on his tiptoes, he took a look in, and quickly fell over upon seeing the ghastly remains of one come before him.
With the image burnt into his mind, he stared at the casket in some amount of horror. The thought of being the only one alive in such a place began to swell and turn dark, which got him to his feet once more. Instinctively, he ran to a pair of statues that probably marked a door.
Two statues, rectangular in shape and hollow in the centers, stood silent against the wall. In the centers, statues of children with horns could be seen, hugging their knees with their faces hung in despair.
Running straight to the wall, he hit his hand against it, trying to find the door.
"Let me in!" He continued to run his hands up and down the wall, looking for some form of switch or handle, "Please, let me in!"
The statues didn't move, nor did the wall give way.
"Guess I can't go that way..." He turned, glancing about the room. All around him, strange contraptions hung off the walls and from the ceilings, most of it coated in dust.
There was a staircase, in the middle of the room, leading up to some unknown destination. Taking to the stairs, he reached the top and found a lever. Pulling down on it with as much force as he could muster, he jumped back as several things above him began to move.
Dust poured from gears, as a small door below was pulled up. After reaching the top, all of the machinery came to a halt, a fine dust drifting down from above. Coughing once or twice, Ico ran back down and went through the door.
The next room was, apparently, some form of storage room, since the middle of the floor was indented deeply, making a huge gap between each side of the room. At the other side, a blank wall awaited, looking hopeless. But light was pouring out of an open window above.
"I don't think I can..." His thoughts were interrupted when he looked at a chain hanging from the middle of the room. Walking over, he leaned forward and grabbed ahold of it, giving it a tug.
Some dust fell from the ceiling, but the chain seemed to be steady.
Wrapping both hands around the cold metal, he took a run and leapt off the ledge; making a graceful, curved swing upwards, he let himself go and awkwardly flew through the air.
Quickly, he pulled himself up the chain, then turned himself so he was facing the window. Swinging his weight, he swung close to the edge... but quickly went back. Again throwing his weight, he let go at the peak of his arc, and flew through the air, hitting the wall with some force.
Lucikly, he had grabbed the windowsill, and was quickly in the frame, nursing a bleeding nose. He heard the chain behind him shift, and glancing over his shoulder, a glimpse of the chain falling was caught in his eye.
After spending a minute plugging his nose and staring skyward, he climbed out of the window and found himself above a small ledge. Jumping down, he took a minute to glance upon the shining waters.
For as far as the eye could see, the sea lay in expanse, with not a hint of land to be seen anywhere. A heavy breeze was blowing past, drifting the scent of salt water upward. For a minute, he felt totally alone in the world.
Slowly he got back to looking around, and noticed two ladders leaning against a -very- tall wall. A hole was seen at the top of the one resting to the very right; barely, one could make out a staircase. Scaling the ladder, he pulled himself into the cold room and looked around.
Stairs wound up and around the tower, light pouring through the narrow windows. Struck with a sense of deja-vu, Ico numbly stared at the steps. Although dreading it, he looked up, and spotted a black-iron cage.
"It's like my dream..." His eyes scanned the walls and the bottom of the cage several times, "I guess... I guess I've just got to be careful."
Uneasily resting a foot against the first step, he took a deep breath. Slowly, he began to climb, trying not to look at the cage in the center of the room. Up and up he climbed, just barely reaching the top; with a slight rebound of courage, he glanced at the cage.
Within it's dark confines was a girl, so pale she all but glowed. The girl, sickly thin, was crouched over, hugging her knees, with her head hung over. She was silent, breathing quietly, unmoving.
"Hey!" Ico called to the girl, "Are you okay?"
She didn't move, not even to flinch.
"Hey, uhm, don't worry, I'll get you out of there, okay?"
Again, there were some gears and such attached to the ceiling, hinting that a switch would be seen nearby; looking around, he found it at the bottom of the stairwell. Hurrying back down (and trying not to fall over) he ran in front of it, and gave it a sharp push.
SNAP.
For a minute, he just stood still, staring at the broken peice of wood on the floor.
"Maybe I could get the gears started myself."
Hurrying back up (and now sweating a storm) he paused on the steps, calling to the girl.
"I tried the first lever, but it didn't work, so I'm going up there to get you down, okay?"
She remained immobile.
"Don't worry!" Ico was quickly running up; suddenly he stumbled back at the step ahead of him crumbled into fine dust. Thusly, all the other steps above did the same, once again adding some insult to injury.
A clever problem needed a clever solution- running to the nearest window, he leaned out and sought out some form of ledge. Luckily, the rough wall looked just fine for climbing, so he clambered out of the window and scaled the surface.
"Wonder how high..." He looked down. "...Don't look down. Always look up."
Looking skyward, he continued to climb to the highest window; upon entering, he noticed a small, somewhat sturdy platform just before a second switch. Leaping out, he took the lever (carefully) and pulled down (carefully) until it clicked.
All at once, the chain holding the cage went slack, running across wooden beams so fast it sparked a small fire. The cage hit against the ground with a loud clank, tossing it's prisoner forward; the girl countered by suddenly leaning against the back of the cage.
Quickly, Ico climbed back out the window and came back in the lower one, hurrying down the stairs. Reaching the bottom (and panting up a storm, one would imagine) he rused to the cage and pulled on the lock, which quickly gave way.
"Are... are you okay?" He panted, looking at the pale girl inside the cage.
"Unne ere ayua'tu?"
"...What?"
"Yeurla unne va'tise du caeh?" The girl spoke, softly, her voice sounding as if it had gone through years of disuse. However, the words that came out weren't like anything Ico had ever heard before. Suddenly she pointed at the space behind him, shouting, "Eoule!"
Whipping around, Ico saw a monstrous figure rise up from the dark floor. The size of a full-grown man, it was made entirely of quickly-moving black shadow. Startled, he took a step back, then found himself taken up by the front of the shirt.
With amazing ease, the monster tossed him into the corner of the room; meanwhile, above, a peice of the blazing timber came down.
Nearly knocked out of his senses, Ico came around when he heard the girl scream- without thinking, he scrambled upright and picked up the unburnt end of the stick, and took a lunge at the creature.
The impact was hard enough that a peice of the monster was literally sent flying; repeated hits were enough to disintergrate the creature. Ducking a swing from his foe, Ico delivered a severe blow, cutting the shadow in half which promptly disintergrated. His new acquaintance fell to the floor, silent. Dropping the stick, he kneeled down beside her.
"Hey, you okay?"
"Unne..."
"You... don't speak English?"
She stared up at him through faded, weary eyes.
"Ico." He pointed to himself.
"Ico." She repeated it, then gestured a hand weakly at herself, "Yorda."
"She escaped... One of them escaped, and now she escaped..."
In the confines of the castle above, a shapeless spirit was enraged.
"They should know there is no life, here, or outside the castle. Stupid fools..." The spirit had been watching the whole series of events unfold, from the minute the knights had brought the boy, "I shall prove to them as such; or I will make that foolish boy perish..."
"Yorda, I'll get you out of here, okay?" Ico was speaking slowly, still half expecting her to understand, "Come, I'll help you up."
He gently pulled her off the floor, waiting until she felt as if she was steady. His hand was tightly held around hers. "I'll get both of us out."