Fan Fiction ❯ Loss ❯ One-Shot

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

"Loss", and the general overall concept of "Loss" (as well as the pin part, that's very important later on) is completely copyright Orin Drake 1997-2003. The characters/names Hylian, Link, Gannon and Zelda belong to Nintendo.
Background: This is also another dream I had. A real window into the mind, eh? The pins carry significance... but who knows when I'll ever get that bit posted...

The heroic figure of the Hylian they called Link stood in front of the castle gates. The day was won, the world was safe, the princess was back home and Gannon was gone forever. But out of the corner of his eye, Link noticed something. Not so much something, but nothing. There were suddenly no people around. The silence began to get deafening, his own heartbeat betraying his instincts.
Suddenly he looked ahead of him, to nothing but darkness. He shuddered so violently the sword slipped from his hand, and as he reached to pick it back up, it simply wasn't there anymore. He looked at his shield, but it disappeared in front of his eyes into dark mist. As he swallowed hard, he heard the distant laughing of a wretched beast, setting his skin crawling.
He was thrown quite suddenly against a wall of flat, silvery stone that he was certain hadn't been there before. As his vision returned to clear, he found himself inside a darkened castle tower, standing face to face with the demon he'd thought he'd destroyed. He wanted, needed desperately, to scream, to cry out for Zelda; but as he tried he coughed and tasted blood. The laughter got louder as the evil eyes pierced him, making him shiver like he never had before. In front of him was pushed the carcass of Zelda, forced into his arms from the darkness. He could hear her pleas in his head, but they weren't coming out of her mouth. She'd become one of the souls trapped by Gannon, and he was forcing the young hero to listen to her cries.
Link suddenly felt his legs give underneath him, and struggled for breath as he coughed up more blood. Searing pain slashed his sides and his throat. He fell completely to the floor, agonizingly trying to breathe, trying to stop looking at the rotting body of the princess, but unable to close his eyes. He could hear Gannon laugh and walk slowly away, leaving him to suffer for the rest of eternity as he grasped his throat and looked at the shining floor in terror as thousands of pins began to fall from his mouth.