The Revival of Shadow Link

33:

The moment the door shut, I thought of the door that would lead to the staircase we had been searching for and which could bring us to the floor that had what used to be my bedroom. And when I heard the door lock behind us, I knew somehow that Vio was in what used to be my bedroom, because apparently, today was just not my day.

I could only assume that Princess Zelda was internally screaming and crying like I was, because she confidently walked ahead, and I swear in that moment, it seemed like the ground was working for her and I felt like a monster could have rushed her and tried to hurt her, and her gaze would have made them drop dead. She looked invincible.

I looked at my dagger again, crusted in blood that I knew to be Vio's from...whatever the fuck I witnessed. It suddenly occurred to me that if I was right and not completely crazy, that would mean...at some point, I had killed Vio, the very knife in my hands had pierced his skin, had sliced vital organs, veins, arteries, had killed him, had killed him, had killed him. 

I killed him. And even if I was crazy and imagined that...I could have killed him in the Fire Temple, hell, my intentions were to kill him when he was tied up with those damned swords hanging above his head, he could have died. Could I have really lived with myself if it did happen? I...didn't like admitting it, but the reason he didn't die the second I learned what he had almost done, was because I couldn't let my Vio die right there and then. I was angry and reacting to my anger before I had processed why I was angry, what he had done. 

I remembered my vision tinted red, I remembered my throat hurting when I shouted, I remembered the way my entire boy heated up, I felt like he had set me on fire, I felt like...he could have shattered the mirror, I could have died in my sleep and never known what he did to me, and...death would have hurt less.

Vio hadn't just fucked my ass, he wasn't even with me at the moment, and he was emotionally mindfucking me.

Zelda had disappeared from my sight, I had slowed down, and now I couldn't find her.

"Zelda? Where did you go?"

I heard a gasp, somewhere ahead of me.

I started moving forward before repeating myself.

"Um, I found something...I think you're gonna want to see this."

"See what?" She was only a bit ahead of me, but the hallway seemed to have me going in circles so I couldn't just see straight ahead, even though I felt like she should have been right there. I finally found her, sitting in some random room. The floor was covered in dust and grime, the walls seemed about ready to fall apart. 

With a gloved hand, she picked up a shard of glass.

And you probably know where the glass came from.

I swore before I could stop myself, all I could think about was the unholy pain I faced when I smashed the Dark Mirror, and the darn piece of glass in her hand made me feel all that pain all over again. But on top of that, I felt power surging through my body, I felt the strength I once had return.

The worst part was...I liked it.

I had been feeling so useless, so powerless against what was happening, and the moment Zelda placed it in my palm and my fingers closed around it, I was reluctant to place it down, even when the pain coursed through my body, even though I felt like I was going to drop from how much it hurt.

"He did this to you. It's his fault. If you didn't go to smash the mirror, he probably would have."

"Look," she gestured to another hallway. "There's just...a trail of broken glass."

In a way, it was almost sickening. Glass was just all over the floor, and with every step we took, our feet landed on pieces of the Dark Mirror.

The trail of glass ended eventually wit a piece that was about the size of my hand. 

Before I could help myself, I had already picked it up and tried to find where the others were, totally not starting with Vio before I gave so much as a thought to the rest of them. 

My lovely little bookworm--who I stress I didn't look for first--was indeed laying down on what used to be our bed in our bedroom. He looked to be short on breath, totally awake, and in a lot of pain for a reason I didn't know.

Blue and Red were in the same room together, still unconscious and Green was up and moving with an open wound on his abdomen, except he kept falling over and then he wouldn't be up and moving, he was down and still.

"Uh, Green is somewhere nearby...and he doesn't look too good."

"I'm sure he's--" she looked herself before finishing her statement in a flat tone. "--fine."

Eventually, we found a door and I--because I'm smart and think everything through--started shouting at te top of my lungs, even though some monsters could literally spring from anywhere. "Hey, Green Bean, are you in there?!"

He groaned in response, not speaking to me apparently.

"How do you open this?" Zelda muttered staring at the door that didn't seem to have a doorknob or handle but definitely seemed to be a door.

It took a minute of struggling before we decided that there wasn't a way for us to open it.

"Maybe we can find something to pry it open?" I suggested.

"I don't know if we're going to want to spend too long trying to find something to pry it open," Zelda sighed. "Green? Green? Are you okay?"

Silence. Dead silence.

"We need to find something," I said.

I looked around, going into rooms and trying to find something before I tripped over a shovel. 

"Hey, Zelda, do you think a shovel can pry a door of solid steel open?"

"No."

"Well, we're trying it anyways."

It actually worked, and me, Zelda and the broken shovel stood there for a minute staring at the open door.

"That actually worked?"

"Of course it did, I'm awesome."

"You're beginning to sound a bit like Blue."

"Are we gonna go save Green or what?"

Green was passed out on the floor, drenched in blood, not exactly something you want to see when you're in a rush to save a group of colorful clones who are the only ones who could save Hyrule. 

"Dagnabbit, that's not good."

"Oh my goddesses, Green! Get up!"

And then Zelda exploded.