So Below

Part 3

Warning: blood, gore, non-descriptive violence on animals, body horror

***

"Your protégé is escaping."

Time's announcement wasn't needed. Twilight already caught sight of Wild taking flight, disappearing into the crowd with Jasper in tow.

"We better go after him," said Time. He downed the rest of his milk and stood. "Otherwise that kid of yours is gonna get himself in trouble."

Twilight shook his head. "Nah, leave him be."

"Really?"

"I'm his friend, not his keeper. If he want to go and have fun, that's his choice."

"Even if that choice is an idiotic man in a giant purple hat?"

Twilight rolled his eyes. "That kid just ate his weight in salsa. If his breath doesn't scare Jasper off, nothing will."

Time laughed. "Good point. In that case, I'm going for another round of milk."

***

Wild woke to the smell of blood.

As the cook, he's used to the coppery scent. He particularly enjoyed the taste of blood pie, and when he had no water while traveling the desert, he would drink blood to keep him hydrated.

But this was not the scent of fresh blood. This was old, edging on the brink of rot. Wild groaned and lifted his head.

He laid on a pile of bloody, skinned furs.

"The fuck...?" He said, sitting straight up. There were dozens of pelts from various animals. Wild recognized boars, dogs, cats, sheep, and even squirrels were amongst the pile. Unlike Twilight's pelt he wore around his shoulders, these were not cut with a knife nor cleaned properly. These skins had been ripped off, leaving chunks of flesh behind.

"Gross..." Wild muttered, getting up and off of the pile. He shuddered when his naked foot made contact with the ground. Freshly turned earth seeped in between his toes, chilling them to the bone. "What the hell-?"

He suddenly remembered what happened to him.

Wild finally turned towards the rest of the room. He was in a large, circular stone chamber. Water dripped endlessly from the ceiling, turning the already cold dirt into mud, and the only light source came from burning torches on the wall. There was a doorway leading out on the other side of the chamber.

Sitting between him and the exit were arms.

Thin, pitch white arms grew out of the ground like weeds. The was seven of them scattered around the chamber, their palms raised to the ceiling, fingers curling like claws. The fingertips of each hand had been rubbed down raw, leaving bloody, shredded stumps. None of them moved.

"Oh... fuck this," said Wild. He reached for the Sheikah Slate on his hip. It was gone.

Wild cursed again. He searched the ground, thinking it must've fallen off of him, and then turned back to the hands. He saw it. The furthest arm from the exit held the Sheikah Slate tightly in its grasp.

A small droplet of fear seeped through Wild's frustration. Just like the first day he woke up at the Resurrection Shrine, he didn't know where he was, what was going on, and nobody knew what happened to him. His only constant was the slate, and now it was being held in the hand of some unknown monster.

Wild eyed the exit. He should escape now. Come back later with the others.

If it wasn't for the slate, he'd be dead right now. It held the photos of Mipha, of Zelda, and many others. Those could not be replaced.

"Fuck me..." He muttered.

As carefully as he could, Wild walked across the long chamber. He made his steps as light as possible, keeping an eye on the arms. Many of them were spaced out far enough to ignore.

He got to the arm holding his slate. The arm was taller than him by a good foot. He studied it for a long moment, thinking of how to wrench his slate away from it. Besides its unusual length, the arm was no different than that of a human. It had an elbow, wrist, knuckles, and on closer inspection, hair.

Wild reached up to grab the slate.

His puffy Gerudo sleeve gently brushed one of the pitch-white fingers.

Wild cried out in surprise as the hand suddenly dropped the slate, twisted and clamped down upon his wrist. Its grip was like a vice, refusing to let go. Wild kicked at the elbow viciously. He was unable to shake loose.

Another arm rose up from the wet soil. Seeing it, Wild tried to jerk away, but it grabbed him by his upper arm, wrenching him back. Two more hands burst through the dirt, taking hold of his ankles. He struggled.

"Motherfuckers-! Get off me! Get-!"

From the middle of the room, a bulge grew beneath the soil. It was pulsating heavily like a heartbeat. Then with a hellish scream, the bulge exploded, spraying dirt and blood everywhere. A thing broke out of it like a macabre butterfly from its cocoon, its head reared up towards the ceiling.

"Oh goddess..." Wild said, staring at it.

The creature lowered its head. It had the face of a human. But its eyes were gone, leaving behind a small trail of gore like someone had ripped them from its sockets. It had no lips, only teeth, fitting inside of a jaw that looked like it been broken multiple times. Its neck was as long as the arms. The creature's body was bloated, its skin melted in several places, blood still seeping out of its wounds.

It had no hands. Only bloody stumps.

The creature shuffled towards Wild. With every inch it took, its teeth rattled against each other.

"Get away!" Wild yelled at it. He had no weapons, his slate was on the ground out of reach, and he could not break free. He was a rabbit in a snare awaiting its doom.

"Zel...da..." The creature moaned out. "Zel... da..."

"Don't-!"

It stopped. It was standing so close to Wild, its face was nearly pressed up against his. Close enough to kiss. The smell of rotten flesh wafted off of it.

For a long second, the creature did nothing but stare with its empty eye sockets. Wild kept deadly still, not wanting to break the tension. What was it waiting for? Acknowlegement?

The creature pulled back finally. It bent its head, going down towards Wild's shackled feet. Wild instinctively flinched away. The hands continued to hold strong.

When the creature pulled back up, Wild gasped. It had the Sheikah Slate in its mouth, clamped between its giant teeth. The creature jerked, dragging the slate further into its mouth, then proceeded to swallow the entire thing whole.

Wild watched in horror as a visible bulge slowly slithered down the creature's neck.

With that, the creature turned and shuffled back towards where it came, disappearing underneath the soil.

The hands finally let go. The suddenness had Wild stumbling. He caught himself and twisted around to see the hands that held onto his ankles also slipping back under the dirt. The other two remained, their palms facing up to the sky, resuming their frozen position.

"Fuck," said Wild.