The appearance of one should not deem who one truly is. Sparkly eyes to a pretty smile, everything is false. A demon's true identity is always hidden behind a mask. But for the events that are about to unfold, identity is truly nowhere to be found. In this town, everything happens for a reason.
~ Behind A Mask ~
Season I, Salem:
Cursed
A horrible storm grows inside her. Brewing up in a witch's cauldron. Hot and fiery. Cool and contracted. Every moment her soul flickers with changes. Evil laughters echoe from the walls inside her. Brick upon brick, building up into towering skyscrapers, shattered within an instant once the haunting laughs ring out loud. She twitches, her grasp tight on the soft linen under her, crumping the sheet up to leave creases.
"Grab me that stethoscope!" the doctor orders, his voice growling as he pushes the princess back down onto the table. The young, Hylian knight dashes across the room, scrambling for the silver piece of equipment laying on the kitchen counter top.
He snatches it up in a fluster, throwing it across the room where Doctor Mario catches it in one hand. Link scurries back and presses the princess down onto the table as she roars in pain, desperately trying to flee.
"Hold still!" the doctor yells now wearing the stethoscope. He presses the tip down onto her chest, listening for any sounds. Horror crosses his mind. Like the world crumbles before his very eyes.
"Did you hear anything?" Link asks.
"No," Doctor Mario says. "There was nothing. Her heart is not beating!"
Heart not beating yet she shrieks in agony, losing control on the countertop.
"That nasty witch did something to her!" continues the doctor. Desperate for a cure, he rushes over to his cabinet letting Link take full control. He pulls open the door and searches through each shelf filled with unique medicines and creams.
Feeling hopeless, he randomly plucks out a bottle filled with an orange substance, rushing back over to the table.
"Open wide!" he orders, which make Zelda shut her mouth completely.
"I said open wide!"
The princess unleashes her claws, scratching at his face as he hovers over her. She kicks up her leg, smashing Link in the jaw and she rolls to the side off the table, dragging the linen sheet along with her.
Predator versus prey. Bent down under the table, slowly moving backwards towards the stairs.
"We don't want to hurt you.." Link whispers, followed by an ear-wrenching squeal from the princess. Cautiously, she continues backwards until she feels her foot collide with the last step of the staircase. Two heads spin. Face to face. Both sides waiting for the other to make a move.
Link and Doctor Mario continue to stare as Zelda slowly while she carefuly walks backwards up the stairs on both hands and feet. Like a crawling black widow, majestic in her form. Something inhumane. Her bones bulge beneath her skin as she twists and bends her body. Almost like a plastic bag twirling in the wind. Her head rotates fully around, the skin on her neck getting extremely tight.
"Slowly..." Link whispers as he steps forward, his eyes wide open.
"And carefully..." Doctor Mario finishes off the sentence for him.
The both continue to approach step by step as the princess slowly shifts her body up the stairs.
"Zelda," Link calls out, no longer quiet and hushed. The princess comes to a halt on the stairs. Her eyes widen, beginning to fade black. Then she lets out an mighty roar, piercing at their ears. It's nothing like they've heard from her, her voice totally altered.
"I am not Zelda!"
Rapidly, her body bends and twirls up the rest of the stairs, within seconds she's crawling in a small bedroom. Dusty, wooden floorboards. A small bed in the corner. An arched window looking out over the whole town. Cobwebs forming in the cracks on the walls. A closet! Her only place to hide!
Quickly, she stumbles forward, her body untying from the knot it has formed itself into. She rises to her feet into a full human form and pulls open the closet door. She falls inside and shuts the door behind her, trying to blend in with the clean, shimmering white coats.
Footsteps approach and she remains as still as she possibly can. A glimmer of light shines through a tiny hole in the side of the closet and she peers through cautiously.
Green and white colors pass around before her very eyes. She catches a glimpse of the Hylian knight's long, green cap.
"She's in there..."
The wooden cane in his hands become apparent and she pushes against the door to escape, but she knows the worst has already happened. Sealed in.
She brings out her sharp nails, clawing at the wood sending shivers down Doctor Mario and Link's spines.
"Perfect timing," the doctor says, sweat barely forming on his forehead as he stares at the cane place on top of the two door handles. Zelda starts to slam at the doors, desperately trying to push them open to no success. Letting out horrible shrieks, the pair have had enough of her antics already.
"This looks bad.. We need help now!"
The dull rain continues to pour down as Mario sits at his kitchen table, staring out at the mountains in the distance. Silence. Silence is key for Mario's happiness. Peace is all he wants.
"Water," he mutters out into the darkness of his kitchen as he watches the rain drizzle. Water.
He snaps out of his trance and scoops up his dusty pail. He pushes open his back exit and heads to the back of his garden. Through the patches of dead daisies and past his cow Moorio's pen. He props himself up on his fence and hops over.
Walking through the moist, wet grass, he stares at the lonely well sitting in the middle of the endless fields. He approaches and hooks his pail up, leaving it to dangle over the long drop leading to a deep pool of water. He starts to pull on the rope and the pail slowly lowers, heading deeper and deeper down into the dark well every moment. Within seconds, the darkness has covered it. Nowhere to be found, but he hears it clash with the water.
He continues to pull, staring down as the pail reappears, rising out of the darkness. He unhooks it and starts to retrace his steps across the grass towards his home.
"Mario?" a voice calls out.
He turns to his left and is face to face with the blonde princess, wearing her dirty, faded pink dress.
"Hello, Peach," replies Mario. "Bad weather, eh?"
"I suppose so," she chirps, saying nothing afterwards. Silence crosses between them, both staring at one another waiting for the other to say something.
"So, about Zelda," Peach continues.
"Oh yes, I was just about to talk about her," Mario says.
"You were about to visit her?" Peach asks?
"Uh, no- uh... Yes, I was," Mario lies.
On the inside, his fire burns greater. He couldn't just lie to Peach's face and not visit Zelda
"You should go soon. I heard screaming from my husband and mines house. I decided to go out for a little walk to get away from all the tension."
"Close to her, eh?"
Peach nods. "Very close. I'm worried.."
"Don't worry, she'll be fine. I better go and check up on the latest updates," Mario says. "I will talk to you tomorrow. Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Frustrated, Mario storms over his fence and into his home, slamming his pail onto the kitchen table which spills almost half of it. He quickly grabs his dull, black coat and heads out the door, even forgetting to lock it behind him.
He rushes past the large tree in the center of the small town and walks up the steps to Doctor Mario's house. He dreaded coming here. Of course, he was visiting the woman who he loves dearly's husband. Never would he have thought in a million years he would be walking up these steps. He knocks at the door and it slightly drifts open. He steps inside, shutting it behind him sending out a large bang.
"Who goes there?!" a voice yells from upstairs.
"It's me, the mayor. I have come to-"
"Come upstairs."
He follows his orders, passes the kitchen table trashed with medicine bottles and walks up the stairs into the small room where he meets Link and the doctor.
"Shush.." Doctor Mario whispers before Mario lets out a word. "She's in the closet."
Just then, a horrifying scream of terror erupts from inside the closet sending a shiver down Mario's spine.
"I can't do this," he says.
"You're the mayor. You need to know what's going on," Link says.
"Fine!" Mario shouts. "What is going on?"
"Zelda has clearly been affected by whatever Palutena did to her at the trial. We both saw her do... impossible things."
"Like what?" Mario asks.
"Well, uh... She rotated her head around fully... And.. She twisted her body around and..." Doctor Mario says, staring at the ground as the evil thoughts pass through his mind.
"She's cursed," Link interrupts.
"Cursed? Is this a joke?" Mario asks.
"Mario, I wouldn't start getting sarcastic or taking this lightly. Something is horribly wrong with her, and I don't know how to fix it."
"I know what to do," Mario says.
"What?" Link and Doctor Mario both ask in union.
"If she doesn't heal within a few days, we hang her."
Running through dark, dusty hallways. No escape routes. An endless maze. Running forever. Ending up in circles. The cycle never ends.
"Stop it!" she screams out. "I want it to end!"
A laughter fills the air, clawing at her pointed ears. Hot, clammy breath blows against her neck and she spins around hastily.
"Please! Just stop it! Let me go!"
"NEVER!" the voice screams inside her.
The ground rumbles, bursting open in flickering flames. Ash and rubble explode in her face and thousands of long red hands with sharp bladed fingers reach up towards her. She falls down into the gaping hole beneath, just managing to get a grip onto the ledge as it begins to crumble.
"Please don't do this to me!" she squeals.
The hands grab every part of her body from hair to feet and begin to pull backwards.
Her head spins around and she watches as the flames grow into a mysterious face. Slits for eyes. A dark mouth filled with razor sharp teeth. It lets out a laugh just before the hands drag her down into the firey abyss as she screams in horror.
Her eyes widen. Her soul taken over. Her pupils fade black and worms riggle under her skin.
She clenches her fists and slams against the closet door, this time letting out her ultimate power. Wood chippings drop to the floor and cracks appear. The trio standing outside begin to panic.
"Do something!" Link shouts. "Get Falcon! Toss her in the jail!"
The cracks are long and gaping and she manages to squeeze her arm out. She scratches at the air and slams her hand against the ground, digging her nails into the floorboards.
In this moment in time, she has no innocence to fight back against the evil inside. Taken over. Her soul plagued by black.
She is gone.
Author's Note:
Hello everyone! Welcome back to Behind A Mask!
Firstly, I'd like to thank anyone who has read this after the long wait! Thank you for staying patient. But do not fret, this is the story I'm focussing on the most for the next while, so stay tuned for more chapters!
If you liked this chapter, please leave a review! I love getting support, and I really wasn't expecting the pleasant reviews for the prologue, so thank you! :)
Also, I have to clear something up:
I said in the prologue that I would be doing POVs of the characters, but I'm just not really like Shulk today and I'm not really feeling it. For some reason, I find it hard to write stuff in the point of view of characters like Mario.
So when I write, I am basically writing what Mario is talking about on the inside. Personally, I just don't feel comfortable writing Smash Brothers characters that way simply because I don't feel like it's possible for me to do it at least. Characters like Marth, sure. But there's something about Mario that doesn't seem human to me. I can kind of only write POVs for human characters, and even characters like Link don't seem human to me.
That is going to be the only change.
Yes, the seasons are still on, and we are currently in Season I: Salem!
Remember that seasons will last for around seven chapters, so we currently have five more chapters of Salem to get through! The point is that they're short, simple yet very interesting. I find it hard to write stories that go on for more than thirty chapters as I eventually run out of ideas, so why not have a bundle of short stories all together?!
This chapter was all about the horror of Zelda clearly being affected by whatever magic Palutena unleashed on her in the prologue, but you see that the genre is also mystery? Yes, there will be mystery to Salem too. My future seasons will have a lot more mystery and maybe a bit less horror while Salem is basically more horror and a little less mystery. But don't worry, you will still get both! :)
So that ends this chapter, Cursed.
I hope you all come back for the next chapter! It's going to be the beginning of the mystery!
Thank you so much for reading, byeeeee :)