Chapter 32: Zora

My head hurt so freakin' much. I felt like there was a MASSIVE weight on top of me. The air that I was breathing was so heavy, it was almost like water. I tried opening my eyes, but some sort of light (probably the sun) was shining through so brightly, that i would've been blinded if I hadn't have closed them right then and there.

I tried getting up, but it was kind of hard to move. Eventually, though, I did manage. Only then did I realize just how weird I felt. I stood with my back to the light (yep, it was the sun) and I opened my eyes once more. Looking around, I saw that there were large ridges all around me that were so high, that I found myself trapped. i then looked up and found a very off perspective: there was water seemingly suspended all over above me.

I began wondering what the heck was going on, but my thought stopped when I saw bubbles rising. After seeing that, it didn't take long for me to figure out that I was underwater, myself. I was about to freak out, but something stopped me. I began to think that because I had already inhaled water, either I had already drowned and I was a ghost, or something else happened. So, I experimentally tried holding my breath of water.

I knew that I was alive when I felt the need to breather, water or not. I looked down at myself in curiosity and I found that my skin was a sickly, pale white. The only place that I had ever seen that shade of white before was on a... zora. I figured that this had to be a dream. Then again, it all felt so real, that I couldn't even say.

Eventually, I decided that I had to get out of the water and look at my reflection in the surface. It took me a while, but after a little bit of figuring out, I was swimming through the water and up to the surface very quickly. It seemed as though I had a bit of the instinct that a zora had, which only scared me more. Thankfully, I made it to the surface before long.

The air was very cold, but I had to expect that from winter air (why was the water warmer than the air if it was winter?). I made my way onto land and I discovered that the air was just as easy to breathe as the water was, while I also discovered that the transition from one to the other was damn near effortless. I then climbed onto the land and turned around to look at my reflection. What I saw was burned into my mind permanently. What I saw was a zora staring back at me!

Well, I didn't freak out earlier, so I figured that it was alright if I started freaking out majorly after seeing THAT! My freaking out continued on for about an hour before my senses returned and I started thinking about ways to fix this. It was then that I finally looked up to see the absolutely beautiful lake in front of me. I stared at it for a while before I looked back down and into the water just in case there was something that I had missed. Unfortunately, I didn't see anything that was noteworthy.

After a while, I remembered the Happy Mask Salesman and what had happened with him. I had put on the mask of a zora and then I became one. Dream or not, that was so impossible, that it made my brain hurt just thinking about it. The only thing that prevented me from ruling it out as a dream was the magic factor. Either way, though, I had the sinking feeling that I needed to get back to the Happy Mask Salesman if I were to have any sort of hope of returning to normal. After figuring that out, the only question was left that hadn't been addressed was how to get there and what direction I had to travel in order to do so.

Some time passed before I figured that swimming upstream would be the best option for that point. After all, if I was wrong, then at least it would be an easy trip back. So, I jumped back into the water and began swimming against the current. I had thought that it would be difficult, but it turned out to be much easier than I expected. It seemed as though zoras were really more powerful than what I had initially thought.

When I finally got to the top of a particularly large waterfall, I came across what looked like a deserted throne room. Guessing that I had gone the wrong way, I started to turn around in order to go back. That was until I heard a voice calling out to me. I then turned around to find another zora that was only slightly smaller than me. Via the voice, I knew that it was female, so it didn't surprise me when she started talking more and asking questions.

"There's still someone around? I thought that everyone went to town for the festival. Hey, are you headed to town?" Not knowing what town exactly she was talking about, I told her that I was.

"Good, then we can go together 'cause I'm headed there too." Without even letting me say a single word after that, she dived into the water, expecting me to follow. Frankly, I wasn't going to let an opportunity like that go, so I jumped into the water and followed her. We went downstream a little bit, but when we turned off to a paved waterway, I was amazed at the fact that I hadn't noticed it on the way up. However, what I did notice was that night had fallen and I started to get tired, so I eventually fell asleep while riding the current.

After waking up, I found that I was still riding the current and that the female zora was still ahead of me. Upon further inspection, I discovered that she had fallen asleep as well. Either way, she still woke up before we got to where we needed to start walking on dry land again. Massive amounts of suspicion rose in me what I didn't see any snow, but I didn't complain. After all, I had had just about enough of snow to last me for a long time.

From there on, it took us about two more days (resulting in a three-day total) for us to get to the town (which was, thankfully, Hyrule Castle Town). Along the way, when we got attacked by some random wild monsters, I discovered that a zora's fins were detachable and very sharp, while zoras must've been part jellyfish or something, because I could actually electrocute things that got too close if I wanted to. Either way, things started getting weird when we actually entered the town. First of all, the female zora (she had never told me her name) completely disappeared.

However, the thing that really sealed the deal was the fact that absolutely no one was even there at all. I thought that there was some sort of festival going on that the zoras were interested in! Eventually, I started just focusing on finding the Happy Mask Salesman's booth. Sure, I noticed that everything was becoming distorted, but I had had just about enough right up to that point so that I didn't even care anymore. Heck, I had become a freaking fish for crying out loud!

Eventually, though, I did find the Happy Mask Salesman's booth, but nobody was there. It made me so frustrated! Finally, I decided to look on the other side of the curtain that was there. Somehow, the inside seemed larger than the outside and I was ready to just plain accept it at that point. All of my anger and frustration died, though, when I heard the sound of some oddly placed music.

When I followed the sound of it, I found myself in complete darkness for a little while. However, I soon gained sight of what appeared to be a zoran band of some sort that even had their own spotlights back there. There were five zoras there, including a resting drummer who appeared very fat and a resting pianist who looked like he was wearing headphones. There were two more that were resting, though. One was some sort of guitarist (presumably bass guitar) with some pretty long hair *cough* hippie *cough* with a female vocalist whose mouth was shut.

All of the attention was actually directed towards the only one who was playing and this one was playing a lead guitar. Before I was able to wonder what the flying fuck was going on, they started disappearing into darkness in the exact order that I described them in until only the lead guitarist was left. As I stood there, listening to his song, a name (It was probably for the song) flashed through my mind: 'New Wave Bossa Nova'. I listened until he was finished so that I could ask him what was going on. When he finally finished, he suddenly looked straight up at me, making me go silent before I could say anything. Without warning, my vision turned white and I heard the unmistakable voice of a zora (they sounded like they had a water filter over their voices at all times) saying

"Don't worry bro, I'll help ya... just take the mask off." Feeling as though I didn't really have any other choice than to at least try, I reached up to do so and I was pretty surprised to find out that it actually came off. When my vision cleared, I discovered that I was holding the zora mask in my hylian hands and that I was staring at the inside of it as though nothing had ever happened. I could only wonder as to what in the world DID just happen.