if i die tomorrow - permanent hiatus

heartbeat

     I breathed in slowly, tasting the sharp scent of the dusk of yet another day on the horizon.

     I was taking a risk, a risk that would cost too much if it failed. However, after drawing out the entire map of the sprawling kingdom and staring at it for hours, I knew I had no choice. 

     There was only one connection between Sadie and I, that may or may not even exist.

     I drew in another breath, a trickle of sweat running down the side of my face.

     I was going to give up control. I was going to let what I had been pushing down for days and weeks, the emotions that had hindered me for so long, seize me in its jaws. Let the Triforce of Courage guide me on my journey.

     Maybe I could snatch myself back afterwards. Maybe it would consume me forever.

     The sun cast the last of its dying radiance,  brilliant in its desperation to be seen one last time before it finally retreated in defeat, over me, over the quiet Kingdom, embracing the world in a shower of fevered light. 

     As the people of Hyrule fell, one at a time, into a troubled slumber, to wake up to another day in a ruined world, I closed my eyes, letting go of a deliberately slow sigh. Riding on it, I loosened myself, let the vaguest of emotions buried in the deepest parts of my soul reach up towards the light.

     My eyes snapped open. I found myself back in my own body, staring at a leaf billowed by the breeze stirring at my feet.

     A yell of pure frustration built up in my throat, and I had to push it back down. 

     No enlightening. No sudden strike of understanding. No light of order in the darkness of chaos.

     I was ready to give up and interrogate Sorrah again when suddenly my left hand burnt up, as though I had plunged it into lava.

     My breathing was harsh, shallow, the scream lodged in my throat. My muscles so rigid I could barely move it, I slowly raised my hand up to eye level, the blinding golden light pulsing in my flesh dancing in my glassy eyes.

     The mark of the Triforce shone out of my skin, the golden threads entwined into the three pieces, glowing brighter, brighter, splitting the darkness of falling night. 

     I couldn't remember how to breathe. I could only stare, everything else forgotten, cast aside.

     Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the light died, taking along with it the warmth, the comfort, that it had instilled in my weary mind. And I was left, staring at the place where the Triforce had vanished, standing alone at dusk in a grass field.

     A soft sigh escaped my lips.

     Then my head snapped up, a new determination flaring sharp in my eyes.

     It was time to leave. I knew exactly where to go.

     Or did I? Did I even know what I was hunting, after all of this? None of this made sense. None of this was logical. 

     Maybe it didn't have to make sense, have to be logical.

     I closed my eyes. I would not be needing them in this journey, a journey of the mind.

     Without even realizing it, my feet were moving over the dewy grass, and everything, everything aligned for a fraction of a moment. 

     I was certain. More certain than I had been for a long time.

     I lost track how many minutes or hours or days had passed. I didn't know how much ground I had covered, nor how many times I had almost died. I couldn't bring myself to care about the desperation pressing harder on my chest with every passing moment, the doubts nagging at the edges of my mind. I was far away from it all.