Disclaimer: Zelda and all of its' characters belong to Nintendo.
Part 5
/RESURRECTION\
(Danger is looming. The people of the village feel it in their bones. It is silent…when a lone child's scream pervades the silence, it is hastily shushed. They are worried, grim… Like frightened animals, they are clueless as to what will happen next. They watch their steps.)
(In one of the more hidden huts, a boy sits next to a young woman on the floor. His worried gaze is set on the anonymous person's face, which is readily pale and quiet. She has the appearance of someone who has not long to live, but somehow clinging to life with an unknown connection. The boy wishes to touch her, to warm her up so she does not look so deathly purple. But something…holds him back. Because he suspects…)
Boy: Say something…
Girl: …
…
…
…
(The silence is maddening.)
Boy: Anything…
Girl: …
…
…
…
…
…
Boy: Why won't you wake up?
(There is no response.)
Boy: Why do you…smell…
…
…
…like…Them?
Girl:…
(He rests backwards. The young woman makes not a sound. The boy sighs as he slowly gives into the despair that this individual will never wake up. This unknown that washed up on the beach.)
(Thunder crackles outside. The boy jumps. Shuddering (half in fear and half in cold), he pulls a blanket off a chair and tosses it onto the person.)
Boy: (thinking) if I can't touch you…this is the best I can do…
Boy: I'm sorry…
_________
Tetra: …
(She floats in the dream she has had so many times before. It is the endless land of muck. But, not as before, she is not sinking in the mud.)
Tetra: …
(She is, again, in front of the barrier she cannot see.)
Tetra: (weakly)…why…
(Silence answers her forlorn and empty interrogation. She does not expect a straight answer.)
Tetra: …
…
…
…
…I…
…hate this place…
__________
(The boy has finally fallen into a light slumber. Unfortunately, for him, he is not awake to witness the person on the floor briefly open her eyes, gaze solidly into nothing, and then close again.)
__________
(She is on the Tidal, watching through another's eyes as the events of two years replay themselves. She watches, a passive observer, unable to do anything. The storm is worse than she had chosen to remember. The crew is being chucked around like ragdolls from the erratic work of the foamy waves. She watches Link, bone-weary, struggle in trying to control the rigging. She sees herself, running to him, seeing his hopeless struggle. He would only succeed in breaking is arms cleanly in half.)
Tetra: …Oh god…ohgodohgodohgod…
(Mako…)
Tetra: MAKO! MAKOO! MAAAKKOOO!
(He sees Tetra and Link in their fruitless labors, and dashes, hoping to aid them. He does not see a wave come ride over the edge of the ship just as he turns around, running towards him, rapidly gaining acceleration.)
Tetra: MAKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(He is struck largely in the back. She can hear the ribs snapping. The event that has haunted her seems to slow down, she can see the shock apparent on his face, the agony, the anguish. She can only scream as she watches him hurtle through the air, and, into the dark depths of the waters.)
(Her hysteria is overbearing, and she keels over. Wave after wave of guilt smash into her gut.)
Voice: Murderer.
Tetra:…(only her sobs can be heard.)
Voice: He put his entire faith in you. They all did. Once Mako died, they lost it. They no longer respected you as a captain.
Tetra: …
Voice: Abomination.
Voice: Murderer.
Voice: Murderer.
Voice: Murderer.
Voice: Murderer.
(Tetra's form is not on the ship anymore. She is back in the land of muck, and she is watching the body of the, "dead" woman suspended in midair by straps. Her long, green hair seems almost too pretty for the paleness of the body, the sickly, ghastliness of her face.)
Tetra: …?
(She thinks she sees a rigid movement shock through the naked body.)
Voice: She is not dead.
(Tetra sees another shudder through the seemingly inanimate body. She does not know why, but dread fills her very being, seeing so wretched a creature still living.)
Voice: She is not dead.
Tetra: I know…
Voice: She is not dead.
Tetra: I know!
(The woman suspended by vines is now stirring. And, with some animalistic desire, Tetra wants to hide. Something about this person, something…inhumane about it. Yet she cannot move, she cannot feel her legs.)
Voice: Why do you run?
Voice: Why do you hide?
Voice: Why…?
Tetra: Oh, shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!
Voice: Denial…
Tetra: JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!
Voice: No.
(Tetra rasps out a wheeze, and begins crying again. For Mako. For the lost faith of those that once respected her.)
(The voice stays silent in amusement. Unseen eyes probe the sobbing girl.)
(And, all the while, the unconscious woman stirs.)
(Tetra is, once again at the bow of the ship. The rest of the crew is underneath having their sparse dinner. Although not having eaten in a few days, she is not hungry. The guilt of the situation is simply too much to allow any other necessities to make themselves known. It has been three months since Mako's death, and she can't move on.)
(The responsibility she once had is thrown to the dirt, and not anyone has spoken to her for weeks. She has simply avoided Link altogether since that night…the rest of the crew…just doesn't talk to her.)
(In her mind, she is slightly surprised…
…that they are still with her…
…for she has neglected her duties as a leader, mixing her
personal problems with her business. Although having lost
one member, she dwells on it, unable to be happy that the
others are still alive.)
Tetra: (thinking) Mother…you'd be ashamed of me…
(Footsteps. She believes she hears them, but does not bother to look.)
Tetra: (thinking) I wonder…what his last thought was… Was it…betrayal?
(Betrayal…)
Tetra: (thinking) It's…my fault…
(The cautious person that crept up to her no sits next to her and puts a plate into her hands.)
(The smell of chicken wafts up to her nose. Her stomach, fed up with being patient with her, screams, begs to be filled. She suddenly feels dizzy, slouching, she clutches herself.)
Link: A…Are you okay…?
Tetra: …
Link: …Tetra?
Tetra: …Yes…
Tetra: (thinking) NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
Link: I thought you might be hungry…
(She started to lose her balance before he steadied her on the railing, pulling his hand away quickly.)
Link: You…haven't eaten in awhile.
Tetra: …
Link: I snuck some chicken up! It might be a little salty.
Tetra: …
Link: (starts to get nervous) Oh, ah…do you…want me to leave you alone?
Tetra: …
Tetra: (thinking) No. I am-
Tetra: (thinking) I'm not some snotty, conceited, little bitch. It's my fault Mako's dead, so I won't allow myself the luxury of someone to help ease the pain! God knows I deserve far, far worse!
(Tetra, however, did not say anything.)
Link: …Silence will get you nowhere.
(Tetra suddenly looks at him with the old fire in her eyes. A smart-ass remark like that a few months before the Incident would have cost him. The fire is doused before it can completely grip her.)
Tetra: …Thanks for the food…
Link: It's no problem. But, will you eat it? You need to eat. You're…you're…_pale_…Tetra. It's starting to worr-
Tetra: (interrupting) I'll eat it, don't worry. I just haven't been hungry lately.
(Link stares at her for a period of time, as if contemplating a lie obscured under a flimsy covering.)
Link: You're not…
Tetra: I'll eat it.
Link: …starving yourself…
(Her eyes widen significantly.)
Link: …to…torture yourself…are you?
Tetra: …
Link: Tetra…
Tetra: …
Link: I…
(Her hands tighten on the plate. She thinks about crashing it over his head.)
Link: …I don't want to see you suffer. I want you to be happy, Tetra! Seeing you do this is killing me as much as it is you!
Tetra: …
(He puts his hands on her shoulders and forces her to look at him.)
Link: Why are you doing this, Tetra?!
Tetra: …
(She cannot break his piercing gaze…)
Link: Don't you know how worried everyone is?!
Link: Don't you know how they want you to smile again?!
Link: Tetra…!
(His pressure on her arms is painful now.)
Link: They don't talk to you because they know your immediate self-defense in occasions where you don't want help! All they can talk about when you're not looking is how to make you feel better! Are you so clueless to this?! Don't you know?!
Tetra: …
(Link, his jaw dropping as his courage fades as he realizes what he has said. His hands snap away from her arms.)
(She still holds his gaze, and, she notices she has control of the conversation.)
Tetra: …
Link: …
(Her shoulders are sore.)
Tetra: …
(They sit in silence.)
__________
Tetra: I don't remember that…
Voice: Of course you don't. You have sealed much of your painful memories away in a place far deep in yourself. So much, in fact, that you're fifteenth year of life is very much a blur.
(This does not sink in immediately.)
Tetra: …You mean…I remember…hardly anything?!
Voice: Don't assume as much. It is too early to assume.
Tetra: Too early for what?!
Voice: (and though she cannot see, Tetra is sure the voice smirks) It's too early to tell you that as well.
Tetra: …
Tetra: I hate you.
Voice: (laughing lightly) So you think. Your opinion may vary. Is it you or I you hate…?
Tetra: Don't mock me.
Voice: I don't believe you're in any position to be barking orders, Captain.
(Tetra flinches at the next throw of mockery.)
Voice: Touched a sore spot, did I…?
Tetra: …
Tetra: I want to leave.
Voice: It'll be a trifle difficult to get out of here, milady…
Tetra: And just why is that?! I'm sick of this dream! LET ME OUT!
Voice: And just how, you presume, you get out of your own mind? I can't help you escape from yourself. Only you are binding yourself here. Oh, and, whoever said this was a dream?
Tetra: I'm sleeping, aren't I?
Voice: Perhaps… But did the thought… Penitence ever cross your mind?
Tetra: To make up for past deeds? No.
Voice: (and, as before, Tetra senses the voice smiling) …You shall see…
_______________
Fire
Fire that burns…
Fire that kills.
An inferno of emotions can either douse, or spur the killing machine.
Hatred, rage…they go hand in hand. They leave behind only a trail of death and destruction.
Other emotions, some pleasant, some unnerving.
Awareness of another.
Who is there?
Who is the one who disturbs my sanctums?
Who are you?
Who are you?
Who are you?
Who are you?
Who are you?
What is this place, unfamiliar.
An unfamiliar place, unfamiliar faces.
Where is the womb from whence I came?
Where is the comfort?
Here there is only cold, loneliness.
Why is it cold?
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why?
THE PAIN! OH GOD! PAIN!
PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN! PAIN!
____________
Tetra: …!
(She suddenly lets out a cry and grasps her head. The word pain ingrains itself into her skull in fiery red letters.)
Tetra: THESE AREN'T MY MEMORIES!
(She screams horribly. Her head feels like a sponge being squeezed by a child.)
Tetra: Hrrrgghh! S…
(She grasps her head harder as the screaming barbaric language she has heard before once again enters her mind.)
Tetra: …! Unngghh!
(And, through the incessant shouts battling in the air, the language suddenly translates in her mind, registering. It glows in orange.)
RESURRECTION.
SHE WILL SOON AWAKEN.
Tetra: …STOP!
SHE WILL SOON AWAKEN.
Tetra: I DON'T CARE!
BEWARE. SHE IS NOT WHO SHE USED TO BE.
(The screaming dialect stops, but it does not echo as it did last time.)
Tetra: Uhh…uhnggghh…
(She does, however, feel nauseated.)
(Sweating, she curls up into a fetal position.)
__________
Nurse: It's been five days…
Woman: Already? He hasn't left her side…
Nurse: Awful weather… The girl has a fever as well, and there's nothing we can do. None of us can touch her.
Woman: So, it's true…?
Nurse: (nods slowly).
Woman: My god…
Nurse: (in pity) I won't like to be the girl when she wakes up. She'll have a lot of questions to answer, from washing up to the beach to why her ears are so different.
Woman: Is it safe to assume that…?
Nurse: No. At this point we are in no positions to make any guesses to the girls' origin. I don't have the authority to even give you my opinion. But…with her condition, if she doesn't wake up soon…
Woman: …?
Nurse: I don't know… It's something about the environment. It's not making her better to be in a healthy habitat. Quite the contrary, it seems to be killing her.
Woman: …! And there's nothing you can do?!
Nurse: …
Woman: My boy hasn't left her side for five days!
Nurse: He could leave any time he wanted.
Woman: Well he hasn't, and now he's gone and got himself attached to her! Attached to someone…who's been in contact with Them!
Nurse: It might have been an accident.
Woman: An accident that hasn't happened for a hundred years at least!
Nurse: I'm going to have to ask you to behave yourself. There are other patients in this place.
Woman: (glares)
Nurse: None of this is my fault, friend. Just have patience…
Woman: You know that was never my virtue.
Nurse: …
Woman: When you have information you're authorized to tell, tell me?
Nurse: Alright.
______
(The boy, around age seventeen, still sits by the girl. There are shadows under his hazel eyes from worry.)
(The young woman has not moved, and suffers from malnutrition. Her skin, which was pale before, has now grown to a rotten yellow and is beginning to shape around the bones. Despite this, the boy can still see her beauty and thinks she must have been gorgeous when healthy.)
(He knows about her fitful dreams. During the long hours of examining her, he notices that at times she is crying lightly, others heavy, and sometimes angry. He wondered if she was ever happy. He hates seeing her suffer like this, he hates seeing anyone suffer.)
(Over the past five days he has slowly been edging closer to her. Only a few inches a day, to move any closer, the scent of Them overpowers and he loses himself to the darkness, completely sapped of hope.)
Boy: (thinking) I wonder what she's dreaming about…
(And he moves a little closer. He is led by a belief, though stupid, that once he can reach her, she will wake up.)
______
Voice: You still don't understand?
Tetra: No.
(They are in front of the unconscious woman again. Tetra finds she cannot look away once again.)
Voice: Primitive are the minds of men. Do you know nothing of what happened a thousand years ago?
Tetra: Of course. Hyrule flooded-
Voice: Ah, but do you know how it flooded?
Tetra: The gods willed it to be.
Voice: To those who want the unexplained explained, yes. To you, and to others who seek the truth behind the matter-
Tetra: Who said I wanted to know the truth?!
Voice: (chuckling) You don't have to. But, milady, you have a duty to know as well.
Tetra: …!
Voice: You are Princess Zelda, the last in the bloodline, correct?
Tetra: …
Voice: Ah, don't tell me. You hate that side of yourself, don't you? Care to tell me why, or shall I second guess you?
Tetra: …It…
Voice: Hm?
Tetra: …It links me to something that is lost, and will never be found. It's just too sad…
(The woman stirs again, and Tetra shivers.)
Tetra: I hate Zelda.
Voice: And so, in turn, you hate yourself.
Tetra: Just that side. There's so many secrets to that side of me…
Voice: So you hate the undefined? And so, you hate Hyrule.
Tetra: …You read…too far into statements…
Voice: Really? I believe I'm just reading over the cover.
Tetra: …
Voice: You love the sea, do you not? Is the sea not indefinable? Something beyond our comprehension?
Tetra: But the sea is like the mother's womb. It's somewhere we all begin and will eventually end.
(Tetra's eyes are glazed over, and her voice has become flat.)
Voice: So you learn…
Tetra: (melancholy) So I learn…
(Her gaze is towards the woman once again.)
Tetra: …So I learn…
_______
(A familiar scent of one lost long ago. A side torn away at a young age.
Young Tetra floats in the sea, a warm sea, breathing life into her limbs. She is curled in a ball, her eyes shut in a peaceful reverie. The warm waters rock her gently. It is apparent that she isn't breathing, yet, nor does it seem that she needs to breathe. Hands clasped at her knee, her tiny feet are overlapped in the semblance of a heart.
A small smile is lapped onto her lips, not one of joy, nor one of sadness. The smile was simply a smile, nothing more.
Yet, there is something odd about this child, aside the fact that she needs not breathe. She is too simple, too simple a being to be a being at all. That isn't to say that humans are complete. She…seems somewhat incomplete of the incomplete.
And, from everywhere and seemingly nowhere, a song echoes. A sad song, a song of hope. Arms of light encircle the child, cover her, kiss her. It illuminates her, and suddenly, the incomplete of the incomplete, is complete of the incomplete.
And, slowly, slowly, the child's eyes open. And she takes her first breath.)
_______
Tetra: …!
Tetra: Enough…!
(Her eyes are wide.)
Tetra: I don't…I don't want to know this!
(The woman is stirring.)
Tetra: (falling to the ground again) I'm not ready! I'm not ready!
Voice: Yet, you will never be ready, will you?
Tetra: I don't want to know this! I don't need to know this!
(A shivering wreck, she cannot tear her eyes away from the woman.)
(Tetra's mouth hangs open and she feels sick once again.)
Voice: …
(And the presence disappears, and Tetra has never felt so frightfully alone before.)
thump-thump
Tetra: …!
thump-thump
(The blood drains from her face, for she knows what to come. Her heart bangs a drum, louder and louder. Louder, louder LOUDer, LOUDER, LOUDER!)
(Her hands clam up, freeze.)
thump-THUMP
Tetra: …!
(The woman…breathes…her mouth twitches. Her wretched figure moves with a sickly barbaric look. )
THUMP-THUMP
Tetra: N-
(And the eyes…OPEN.)
(THE RED EYES.)
(And they look at her.)
Tetra: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
_______
(With a scream that rips through the tense silence of the village. One that seems to cling onto something, something that no one can see. A scream that leads the girl to life itself…
…Tetra awakens.)