The next few days for me passed in fear. Cremia refused to talk to me until Tuesday, leaving me a nervous wreck all though Monday despite Zelda's reassurances that she would forgive me. That, combined with the ever-present fear that my hand would start burning with that pain again, left me unable to relax. But on Tuesday, I finally managed to apologize to Cremia and, just like Zelda said, the whole matter was quickly forgotten. After a few days of no pain in my hand, I forgot about that too. My new biggest concern was my impending presentation with Zelda.
Zelda and I spent lunch on Wednesday going over our notes one last time before Science. Zelda and I were online looking for any last-minute events to add to the presentation.
"It looks like other people have experienced the unnatural stillness as well," I muttered as I scrolled through blogs and news sites. "I'm seeing numerous accounts, but they appear to be quite isolated. They've only been documented in the suburbs or in the main part of Hyrule City. It says here that meteorologists are thinking the dead spots are being caused by fluctuations in the air currents. Oh, they've even got a map here." I turned my laptop towards her, letting her see an overhead view of the city and clusters of dots that marked the reported locations of the dead spots. "I think I'll print this off for the report. We should be able to incorporate it easily enough. Have you found anything?" She shook her head lightly.
"Nothing really. The only thing I'm seeing is references to legends from ages ago." I was intrigued and motioned for her to continue. "According to the legends, the rise of evil in the land is often foreshadowed by unnatural events. Drought, disease, failed crops, that kind of thing. I guess what we're seeing now could be taken as something similar. Think we should include that in the presentation?" I quickly shook my head.
"No, Barnes hates rambling. He'd probably dock us points for going on about fairy tales."
"Okay then," Zelda said, snapping her laptop shut as the bell rang overhead. "I think we should be good to go. Just make sure you print that map off. I'll see you in a bit, Link." I nodded.
"See you then." I took one last look at the map still displayed on my screen. Something about it made it seem familiar. There wasn't much notable about the clusters, other than their largely even dispersal. Then something caught my attention. One of the clusters marking the dead spots was situated directly above my neighborhood. Obviously, I had experienced the abnormal stillness first-hand, but I was still surprised. Looking closer, it seemed that the spots were at their densest right on Nayru Park. I guess that happens a lot right there. I wonder why? There's nothing special about the park. Well, whatever, I need to get to class.
And now time for my inopportune anxiety attack, I thought as I sat in Science class waiting for the bell to ring. This always happened to me, I'd be fine leading up to a project, panic last minute, and then be perfectly fine while it was going on. But those five minutes of being on the edge of doing something were torturous. I think I'm actually sweating. I glanced over to Zelda, who was flipping through her note cards. She looked perfectly fine, and, dressed in a white blouse and black pants, looked very professional. I wasn't a complete mess, sticking with jeans, a plain green shirt, and a green beanie, but didn't look nearly as good as she did. As I glanced down at my notes one last time, the bell rang, and Barnes came strolling through the classroom door.
"Alright, shut up," he said loudly. Everyone did. No one wanted to be on his bad side. "So first off, we've got our first presentation. Props to Link and Zelda for not being lazy asses like the rest of you. We'll listen to them present and then get on with the lab for today. Anyone screwing around will get to present Friday, so unless you're ahead of the game or want to commit suicide by public embarrassment, listen up." Ending his tirade, Barnes nodded to me and Zelda, pulling his chair to the side of the classroom to watch. I stood up and my nervousness evaporated. Weird, right?
Zelda had put together a trifold board with all our diagrams on it and popped it up on Barnes' desk for easy view, with her on the left and me on the right. Zelda started us off quickly and with confidence.
"Hyrule is historically a geologically stable country, with the notable exception being Death Mountain, our own active volcano in the Eldin region. However, we've recently been experiencing mysterious geological phenomenon. Scattered earthquakes, the cooling of the Death Mountain caldera, irregular storm systems, and atmospheric disturbances. We're going to examine these four occurrences and inform you of the theories behind these strange changes in the established patterns. We'll start with the earthquakes."
From there on, everything went smoothly. We had decided to split up the topics to two for each of us. Zelda took the earthquakes and storms, while I talked about Death Mountain and the atmospheric dead zones. Only one problem. As soon as Zelda started talking about the earthquakes, my left hand started to itch. I didn't think anything of it at first, but the more she went on, the worse it got. I managed to get through my piece on Death Mountain before itching it furiously while attention was on Zelda. It wasn't as painful as it had been that Sunday in the park, but it seemed like it was well on its way. But I pressed on. No way was I going to blow this presentation. I heard Zelda stop talking and realized I was up again. Doing my best not to look like I wanted to curl up and clutch/cut off my dominant hand, I pushed forward.
"The last of the anomalies is related to sudden lulls in atmospheric movement. The result is a pocket of what we call "dead air," where there is no ambient noise. Having experienced it myself, I can tell you, it is quite disturbing. The current theory is much the same as those concerning the irregular storms, that Death Mountain's cooling has affected established air currents. However, one trait seen in these dead zones doesn't appear in the storms. The dead zones are all clustered together, as you can see on this map."
At this, I gestured to the map I had printed off with my hand, which now felt like it was about to melt off. "As you can see, the three most focused areas are in the Din, Farore, and Nayru districts." As I said this, I traced my hand along the map from the northern-most cluster, to the one to the south-east, and across to the south-west group, the one sitting above Nayru Park. Impulsively, I moved my hand back up to the northern collection of dots. My hand pulsed as I completed the motion. Weird. Well, weirder. I quickly continued.
"Additionally, three smaller groups have also been noted, one here in the Gerudo district, here in Akkala district, and here in the Faron district." Again, I traced the map from point to point, going east, west, south, and back up. Again, my hand pulsed. And that was when the pain vanished.
Only to be replaced an instant later by agony so all-encompassing that I couldn't control myself any more. I crumbled to the ground, screaming in pain and clutching my hand. I stretched it out in front of me, desperate to at least see what was causing my torture. By chance, I had fallen facing the desk and could clearly see the map I had been tracing. Upon it burned a sigil. A large triangle with a smaller, upside-down triangle inside it, exactly along the lines I had traced a moment ago. As I watched, transfixed by something that shouldn't be there, my hand pulsed once again, and the lines on the map responded with another pulse an instant later. With another pulse, I managed to focus on the back of my hand. I saw an identical mark take form there, darkening my skin as if I had a deep tan. The corners of the larger triangle darkened, leaving the center, upside-down triangle the same color as my natural skin. The new mark seemed to shudder before golden light erupted from the darkened patches, searing my eyes. I screamed one last time before the light faded and I fell into blessed darkness.
How's that cliffhanger? Smarts a bit, doesn't it? For the observant in the audience, you might notice this chapter is *adds generous amount of bullshitting* a tad shorter than my other ones. That's literally only so I can have this cliffhanger. A stinger like that really doesn't have the same impact when you find out four seconds later what happens. So stew on this for a few days. For those of you indignant about the chapter length, two things you should know: first, shut up, it's my story, I'll write it however I please. Second, we're getting towards the kick off of the quest (as you may be able to tell), which, without spoilers, lends itself to longer chapters. How long? Great question, I'll let you know when I finish it. It's being a bitch to write. Describing...stuff...is really hard.
On another note (F# maybe?), reviews. Four of them this time. Nightwing, I put it down to him being the hero gives you a bit more presence of mind. Very true though. It'll be more fun this way too. Ultimate, cheers and agreed. midnaisbae, I see you. *wink* Sorry though, not this time around. In another life maybe. Definitely an interesting idea though. That'd be a fun mess to untangle. James, thanks. Nice to hear from you again.
An extra thanks to everyone following and favoriting the story. Thanks to fancy graphs, I can see that about 400 people have at least taken a look at the story. 10 favs and 14 follows are greatly appreciated. And to those of you who don't know, following is the fastest way to not only become one of coolest people on this site, more popular with the people you like (results not guaranteed), and increase your IQ by five points (also not guaranteed), but as an added bonus, you get notified any time I post a new chapter. Just thought I'd throw that in for you as a bonus, no need to thank me. If you need more convincing, I have this cool virutal money which has been generously "donated" by mindaisbae, which I will be evenly distributing among my reviewers for the next chapter. See? Incentive.
Anyway, new chapters coming soon. Sooner if I can get this damn chapter done. Working a lot is great from an "I'm a bit broke" standpoint, but not so much from a "Really want to write this story" one. Got a few days off though, so between playing Hyrule Warriors, watching anime, and sleep, more story shall be written. Just got to power through and then we get some fun new toys. Hehehe, can't wait.
Cheers ladies and gents.
-Aro