Disclaimer: Midna and The Legend of Zelda are the intellectual property of Nintendo.
Entwilightened
Chapter 6
July 5, 2009
It appears I've gone mad, courtesy of—who else—Alec Balkojec. That boy is more trouble than anything I've ever seen. Today, out of the blue, I get a call from him telling me his friend is hurt and it's an emergency. I assumed it was something like the snowboard incident last year, and told him to bring them in.
Instead he brings in a black-and-grey-skinned, orange-haired girl who bleeds green.
My God, that sounds mad written like that.
Anyway, he proceeds to tell me she's something called a Twili from some video game. Legend of somethingorother. And she's a princess. And a sorceress.
I'm understandably skeptical, but take him at face value for the time being. Alec doesn't tell stories, and the strangely colored flesh and blood are adding some credibility.
Oh, did I mention she's covered in cuts? Alec says he has no idea how that happened.
I patch her up, go to give Alec an update and as I finish up, we hear a crash from the back of the clinic. We race back there to find Midna—the patient—awake. She's knocked over the mobile EKG/IV doodad and looks like a deer in the headlights.
As I'm trying to calm her down, she speaks some language I don't recognize at all. When we convey our lack of understanding, she gets this frustrated look on her face and one of the green tattoo-looking lines on her body starts glowing. Then, she touches two fingers to her temple, there's a blue flash, and she's miming for us to speak. Through a little yes-no question session, we figure out she's cast a translation spell on herself.
Kiowa leaned back and stared at the screen for a moment. She shook her head and continued typing.
Either she's playing us for fools and is a good actress, or she's the real deal. She starts speaking some simple English and I explain as best I can why she's here. I slip up and call her by name and she gets suspicious. Alec explains vaguely how we know who she is. She seems convinced, if surprised. Alec leaves the room, and I fix up the readout console and follow.
Alec left a few minutes ago. I think it was all a bit too much for him.
It's just the Midna girl and me now. I should probably go check on her. I doubt she really trusts us.
Kiowa saved and closed the file. As she moved to stand up, an idea stopped her, and she returned to her seat. She opened the computer's browser and navigated to Wikipedia. She contemplated the search box for a moment before typing in "Twilight Princess".
"Maybe this'll give me a better idea of what's going on…" she muttered.
The page loaded was titled "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess". She filed it away for future reference—it could come in useful. She scanned the page, taking in snippets of the game's plot as she went, remembering the things Alec had said and connecting them to what she was reading. Seeing Midna's name highlighted in blue under the Plot subsection, she clicked on the link and waited for the page to load.
She read through the article and frowned when she neared the end. "This is all pretty cut and dried…now they live happily ever after, right?" She scrolled down further, and her frown deepened. "Maybe not…shatters the mirror and returns home…" She leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. "Not your typical happily-ever-after then," she mused.
She leaned back in her chair and twirled a pen in her fingers. Everything Alec had told her matched up with what the Wikipedia page said. Unless this was some incredibly elaborate hoax, (which she doubted—there was no simple way to get blood that uniformly green. Or iridescent.) all this was really happening, and they had an interdimensional visitor. Armed with this troubling knowledge, she removed the flash drive and shut the computer off.
"Time to talk to the princess," she sighed and reentered the hallway.
The elevator dinged and he gave a silent cheer. On the sixth floor he had hit green gold. He grimaced at the analogy; he could do better than that.
Pay dirt, then. Either way, he had discovered a trail of green spots leading away from the elevator bank to the hallway. It was easy enough to spot on the off-white tile floor. He walked off the elevator, eyes glued to the floor. He stopped abruptly as the tile turned to carpet and swore. This was going to make it a little harder. And why did the carpet have to be blue?
He stooped down, glaring fiercely at the carpet as if trying to intimidate it into cooperating. After several seconds of staring contest with the carpet, Roger won. Just like in one of those magic eye puzzles, something in his brain clicked, and suddenly he could see the green stains on the carpet effortlessly. He began following the trail down the hall, hunched over like a Sherlockian detective.
He halted. The trail had disappeared. He executed a standing turn and backtracked until he located the nearest green stain. He looked up and straightened. The door ahead of him had to be the source. 608. Time to confirm his suspicions.
He knocked. No answer. Excellent.
It pays off, he reflected, to carry a little bag of tricks. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small velvet drawstring bag. In it, he had a variety of little implements, bits of wire, cables and assorted odds and ends. He pulled out a thin screwdriver and a meticulously bent paperclip, then returned the bag to his pocket. He jammed the screwdriver into the lock on the doorknob, and gently inserted his trusty paperclip. Lockpicking was a particularly useful skill, especially if you were nosy. It was also surprisingly easy to do with a little practice.
He felt around for the first tumbler with the paperclip and nodded when the it encountered resistance. He pushed up gently, and he felt the pressure on the paperclip disappear. The lock turned slightly before catching again.
Roger was so absorbed in his work, he didn't hear the footsteps behind him until the person gave a pointed ahem. He jumped and turned around.
"Oh, hi there! What can I do for ya?" he asked, grinning cheerfully.
The owner of the cough was a sour-faced old lady. Her expression was a cross between a glare and a scowl, and seemed very at home on her features. "What d'you think you're doing with that lock there?" she demanded.
"Oh, this?" Roger laughed. "My buddy Alec had to rush a friend of his to the doctor's and caught me on the way out. Said he locked himself out, and 'couldn't you get my key for me'?" Taking the old lady's lack of response and a signal to continue, he did so, "Seeing as I'm a locksmith, I figured this sorta thing'll be a breeze!"
"You break into people's homes for a living? Sounds an awful lot like burglary to me!" said the old lady, turning her glare up a notch.
Roger remained unfazed and kept up his grin. "Nonsense! My job is to help people out if they ever run into any lock-related problems! I'd never use my powers for evil!" The last sentence was said with a wink.
"Don't locksmiths usually use drills?" The lady was relentless.
"Only if you want to ruin the lock, madam!" Roger said with a vaguely horrified expression on his face. "Picking it is much less likely to damage it, and as an advantage, does not require the owner to buy a new lock or keys! Observe…" Roger turned back to the door and began working the lock once more.
"What're you doing? I can't see!" Despite herself, it appeared the old lady was curious now.
Roger knew he had her now. "What I'm doing here is, essentially, what a key does. Except I'm doing it manually, see? Every key's got those little teeth in it that push little pins in the lock up to an exact height. The way the lock is made, I can push the pins up and have them hold in the right position with a little bit o' finesse…" At the word "finesse", the lock gave a click and turned a little more. "Aha! See, that there's tumbler number two down! I'll be at this for a bit longer…" he muttered.
"Well, I suppose you don't seem like a crook," the old lady admitted. "I hope I never find you doing that to my door though, locksmith or not!" She harrumphed and began walking away.
"Good day miss…ah…" Roger paused.
"Clarkson!" she shouted. "As if it's any o' yer business…" she muttered to herself.
"Goodbye Ms. Clarkson! A pleasure meeting you!" Roger called, turned back to the lock and let out a sigh. "That…was close," he breathed.
In minutes, he had successfully repeated the process for each tumbler, and all of them were out of the way. He raked the paperclip across the top of the lock mechanism to check for sure, and nodded. He turned the lock with the screwdriver, and gave a sharp cry as the door swung open and he fell through the doorway.
That was unexpected. He thought he'd have to pick the deadbolt as well. He had not been looking forward to that part, but it seemed he had worried needlessly.
He got to his feet, swung the door closed behind him and relocked it. No sense making anybody suspicious if they came home unexpectedly. Besides which, it would give him a few more moments to find a hiding place if he needed one.
Roger rubbed his hands together as he looked around the room. Basic apartment—kitchen to the right with a wraparound counter, open to the living room. The living room had precious little in it, save for a few ornamental knickknacks, an ancient black TV, the most beaten up coffee table he had ever seen, and a sagging, floral print sofa.
On the far left end of the right-hand wall was a door leading deeper into the apartment. To the right of the door was a hallway with a door at its end, and two on its right wall. The forward wall was home to two grimy windows. The rainstorm seemed to be doing very little for them-the grime was probably second generation, naturally selected to be resistant to weather, soap, and possibly nuclear holocaust. The left-hand wall was blank.
Roger shrugged and decided to try the hallway first. First door on the right was…a bathroom that looked like a tiny tornado had swept through. Bottles were strewn all over the floor and the medicine cabinet was wide open.
Whatever happened, Roger thought¸ I guess it was medical. Either that, or they're slobs. He entered, and other than the general disaster-zone appearance, nothing seemed to be amiss. He retreated from the room, and closed the door.
And behind door number two is… Roger thought as he moved to the second door in the hallway. He threw it open. ...a linen closet. He gave a quick once-over, not expecting to find anything. Unsurprisingly, he found nothing and closed the door.
He turned to the end of the hallway and put his hand on the doorknob. Probably a master bedroom, he thought, and opened the door. He was right. The room was nearly as large as the living room, and a bed in the center dominated it. It was even gloomier than the rest of the apartment, lit only by a single water-covered window on the left wall. Everything was cast in vague silhouettes and indiscernible shapes.
Roger prowled the room, checking each half of the room thoroughly, even checking under the bed. Nothing. Roger tapped his temple before slipping out the door and back into the living room.
What have we got behind door number three? He had, in retrospect, removed the linen closet from Numbered Door status.
He carefully eased the door off the latch, before throwing it wide open. When he saw what was inside, he sucked a breath in through his teeth and a chill ran down his spine.
On the floor at the end of the bed, the carpet was soaked in the green stuff. Worse, it looked thick and viscous like…
Oh God, Roger gagged, and noticed a metallic scent in the air, like copper mixed with mint. He tried not to breathe, but the smell invaded his nostrils anyway.
Just when he thought he had it under control, it occurred to him that he had followed a trail of blood up here. As if that thought wasn't enough, his mind superimposed an image of a grey and black skinned woman, lying on the floor, covered in green blood, eyes wide open and sightless.
Five minutes later found Roger sitting in his apartment on the third floor, shivering. He had no desire to return to apartment 608 anytime soon. He reached into his jacket pocket and touched the stiff wad of green-stained toilet paper. He shuddered. Damn his curiosity.
Alec pulled into the apartment complex's parking lot and cursed as he got the only available space—as far away from the lobby as possible. He killed the engine, hopped out of the car and hit the ground running. He was sick of being wet, and wanted to get out of the downpour as soon as he could. The rain pounded his body like tiny, explosive jackhammers. Cold jackhammers.
He crashed into the lobby and nearly bowled over an old lady attempting to exit. He skidded on wet sneakers, spun around and did a good impression of a full body tackle toward the ground. He rolled over and groaned. Now he was wet and aching.
An elderly face appeared in his field of view. "Oh. Hi Ms. Clarkson. Sorry about that. I was trying to get out of the rain."
Ms. Clarkson scowled, "Young man, you are an absolute terror," she huffed, and disappeared from Alec's view.
"Yeah, you're a ball of cheer yourself, y'old bat," he muttered, extricating himself from the ground and calling an elevator.
He pushed the button for the sixth floor and stepped out when the car stopped. As he was entering the hallway, he noted the silvery-green blood on the floor and made a note to clean that up soon.
Alec reached room 608, grabbed the doorknob and moved to retrieve his keys when the motion unexpectedly caused the doorknob to turn. He frowned and pushed the door open. Hadn't he locked it as he left? Maybe not…he couldn't even remember now; the past hour or whatever it had been was all a blur now.
He shrugged and locked the door behind him. He opened the door to his bedroom and flopped onto his bed. He relaxed for all of four seconds before his nose wrinkled and he sniffed. What was that smell—oh, right. Dammit.
He rolled off the bed, retrieved a washcloth from the linen closet, and a second bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the bathroom. He groaned as he entered the bathroom—he was going to have to clean that up as well. As he made his way back to the bedroom, he stared at the bottle in his hand and shook his head. What couldn't this stuff do?
It turned out that it couldn't quite get out the green stain at the foot of his bed. The washcloth picked up most of it, but there was still a very definite circle. He tossed the washcloth in the trash along with the bloodied tissues scattered around, and tidied up the bathroom to the best of his ability.
Finally finished, he flopped onto his bed with an audible groan. He considered thinking about the day for a moment, but exhaustion and the post-adrenaline crash had other ideas, and he quickly fell into a dreamless sleep.
Notes: All hail Wikipedia for its breadth of knowledge, if not its depth or accuracy. Roger makes a triumphant return, and the day comes to a close. Kiowa learns a little more about the situation and Alec is having a hard time coming to grips.
Just got home from a three-week trip, so I'm a little behind. Chapter 7 is partially written. Given the amount of stuff I have planned for it, I may end up splitting it in two. We'll see. Also, some slight formatting convention changes. Slightly new look, same (great?) taste. As always, please review if you've got any kind of feedback.