The Land of Nightmares

PROLUGUE


Author's note: Please read "The Female Link" or this series will make
totally no sense. Thank you, and enjoy!


       Eric was off on his own for the first time to see a brand, new place.
He kept wondering about Link. Gosh, she was so pretty! So lovely, so sweet,
so caring, so kind...
      He shook off his feelings of love for her. He could see the portal in
the distance;the portal that led to his icy fate. Ganondorf was there
now...he could feel it. Ganondorf knew that he couldn't last in Hyrule, so
he travelled to a make believe place, where nightmares came true.
        What type of nightmares?
    He truely didn't want to find out, but he had to. For Link. For
the curse. To rid Hyrule of Ganondorf. He had to save Link somehow; he
couldn't watch her wither to death. He clenched his fists. There was no
going back now. He had to do it. He had to do it no matter the consequences.
He was going to do it no matter the consequences. Only time could
help him make the right decisions.

This world was no way like the one he was use to. It didn't take long
before he realized that this planet was made up of Link's mind.
      Eric realized by the length of this place, Link's mind was ENORMOUS.
In the distance, there were children lifting heavy things of all kinds. Eric
figured that this had really scared her, maybe that was why the Calatian
Sweatshop was in this world.
      "Want some, boy?" Asked a man, clad in black and he moved swiftly over
to Eric, handing him some weights that Eric thought not even an elephant
would be able to lift.
"Uhh, no thank you, sir. I'm quite busy." This place was really scary.
Scarier than he had imagined! The thought of lifting weighs...it was just
too much for him. Eric raced off, and the sweatshop vanished as quickly as
it had appeared. Ahead, there was something else, though. It was himself!
And Link, standing there, shy, of course, as she sort of was.
       "Why don't you love me, Eric? Why don't you like me? Why won't you
even consider asking me out on a date?" It was her hurt-filled voice,
echoing deeply through sobs. His form stood there, carelessly, though.
"I wouldn't want to go out with a peasant like you. You're just scum to me,
I'm gonna marry the daughter of a Lord, and, maybe, a Princess."
      Well, at least he knew something essential to his relationship with
Link. He finally knew that she had interest in him!He wondered if she knew
that he liked her. He shrugged it off, figuring that it wasn't important
right now. Her safety was.
      There was a door ahead of him. He silently crept to it, and turned the
door handle. As he entered, the door slammed shut and locked behind him. He
sighed. What good luck he was fortunate enough to have!
    The door shut behind him. A girl, about the age of nineteen, stared
plainly at him. He had seen that familiar, gorgeous face somewhere before.
Of course! It was Link in the future! Only, she had a deep wound in her
side. "Please help me," she pleaded. "I have a wound and cannot clean it
myself;without assistance I shall perish, and you will not be able to pass."
Eric sighed, knowing that he'd have to do it, as reluctant as he was. He
made his way over to her, grabbed a strange cleaning material, and began
cleaning the wound. A few minutes later, after tons of cries of pain and
wincing, The future Link smiled. "Thank you! You may pass, but be careful."
He nodded and flashed her a solemn smile. With that, he entered the next
room.
     He knew that Link now feared death.
       In the next room, there was Ganondorf, staring menacingly down at
her. It was Link...looking exactly like she did now. Eric dashed forward,
grabbing the sword Ganondorf posessed to keep Ganondorf from killing her. He
did excellent, obviously.
     With one, sharp jab, Ganondorf fell to the ground and vanished. Another
of her fears, Eric figured. Link stood and flashed a smile at him. With
that, she pranced off as nothing had just happened. He watched after her,
and for the first time he found out what a nice figure she had...
        He travelled to the next room, but there was nothing here. It was
complete silence. Then Link appeared from no where. Link was afraid of
herself? How was that possible, to fear oneself?
    Link came forward and slashed his arm. His eyes widened with shock and
he opened his mouth to say something, but it did no harm. This Link
wasn't his Link. It was a decoy, a fake, a clone, an identical twin.
If it could even be called a twin. It was evil.
     It died off fairly quickly, and he sighed with relief. "Freedom!
Hallaluah!"

                     ***
"You can't send him off alone!" Link cried in protest, wrestling to get out
of the Sage's arms. "I'm going with him!"
"It's too late,"Rauru grasped her wrist tighter. She stopped and submitted,
glaring at all of them. The dark circles under her eyes were so noticeable.
"You can't go, he's already gone."
"Then I shall follow him. It's not that hard, you know."
"You can't go. If you go, you'll become weaker and weaker, until you simply
perish."
"You know what, Rauru? If I don't go, Hyrule won't have a Prince anymore.
And without a Prince, do you know what will happen to this land? His
father's rule will simply end when he dies because there are no
heirs. I'm going. Whether I die or not. I cannot watch Eric plunge to his
death in a different realm. I'm going in." She looked around to find out how
she was being kept her. She punched the walls of this strange realm, and
found herself in the Temple of Time. She ran as far as she could, and was
surprised that the portal was still there, waiting, as always, in perfect
condition.
"Just wait, Eric...I'm coming in for you." She grinned, as she hopped into
the wonderous portal.....

It wasn't even exciting to visit this place. Who wanted
Nightmares, anyway? Certainly not Eric.
    He moved his way about on this strange world, never knowing when a
monster might strike out and attack him. He never imagined that a warrior, a
person that seemed so insincere, could possibly be afraid of so many things.
He could see that Link lived in constant fear, though.
     That reminded him. He wondered if she was frozen by now. He smiled,
knowing that she was in good condition. As soon as he defeated Ganondorf,
things would be the way they use to be, only now he knew Link.
       "Eric...wait..." He turned back, quite surprised to hear this
familiar, once sweet voice. It was Link.
"What are you doing here, Link? You're supposed to be in the Sacred Realm!"
"You're right; you're not the warrior. You needed assistance. Now, I don't
want to explain my reason all over again...I already had to tell the Sages.
I have a good reason, and you're stuck with me until the very end. We're
going to either defeat Ganondorf together, or never." She smiled
mockingly. "Let's get going before I have to use energy just by standing
here."
          They walked down a rocky path together, side by side. "You never
told me much about your past," Eric murmured. Link stopped suddenly.
"I thought you knew everything about me."
"Not everything..."
"How'd you know that I was in Calatia? In a sweatshop?"
"I could feel it. I've had dreams about you before."
"Dreams, eh? So there really are Hylian psychics out there."
"All Hylians are psychic." Link blushed.
"Yeah, I knew that..." she trailed off. "You saw me and knew me before you
met me in person?"
"Yeah...but when I saw you in my dreams, you were always fighting off a dark
force. And you were wearing a white gown. I always thought that you were an
angel in a dream." He smiled and added silently, "you are one, too."
"Let's get back to our original topic. Well, I'll tell you about my past,
Eric.
       "It's not a very pretty one. You see...my mother died in labor. I was
sent to an orphanage, and I lived there for about, mmm...3 to 4 years. Then
I was adopted by a nice couple. For only six months, and then they died in a
great fire. After that, I was back in the orphanage. When I was 7, the
sweatshop took me in. Sometimes we trained to be soldiers, and other times
we went into mines to get special minerals. It's not much of a past.
     "Which reminds me. I wonder if they know where I'm at. Wonder if
they'll come looking for me one day..."
"If they do, they won't get ya back." Eric whispered quietly. She felt her
fingertips touch his, and then their hands met. It felt totally natural to
her, and she wondered if he felt the same.
    Suddenly, there was a bright light of smoke ahead. "What is that?" Link
choked down the dust, not a particularly good thing. She felt their hands
separating. She grasped his hand, trying to keep them both together, but
obviously, it didn't work that way. When the smoke cleared, she realized
that she wasn't there anymore. They were all alone for the first time, and
there was nothing that they could do about it.
              Eric didn't like being alone. He wondered if Link was okay,
afterall, he loved her, and possibly couldn't imagine losing her. The
thought of losing Link was non-existent. Because he knew that they'd never
be separated for long.
     Link would always make her appearance. She was always there to fight
off evil. She would come in a time of great peril and save him. But he was
depending on a girl. That was the last sex he thought he'd depend on.
A girl?! Okay, maybe a knight was acceptable, maybe even a male peasant, but
a girl?!
     Link was a girl, but a tough one. At the beginning, he had been quite
jealous of her because she was so much stronger and agile than he was. But
in time, he had grown to kind of accept it, and take advantage of it.
Besides, what was wrong with having a girl that could fight better than a
guy?
      She was the one in control. She obviously didn't need a boyfriend to
take care of her. Maybe she didn't even know what love was. He had a
hopeless crush on her. But it had been prooved. She did like him.
Suddenly, Link appeared again. It was her! Finally! He didn't know how long
it had been since they were first separated. "Hey, Eric! You okay?"
"I'm fine, and you?"
"Just fine, Your Majesty." Eric paused. Link had never said that to him
before.
  "He's falling for it," Said the smallest moblin. Ganondorf nodded
understandingly.
"So he is," he murmured. "The decoy will lead him into a trap, and once he's
in it, he'll never be able to get out." Ganondorf's laughter roared
throughout his new domain on this planet.

        Link sighed. It had been so long since she'd last seen Eric. Was he
ok? It didn't take long for her to make a conclusion--he appeared from no
where, approaching her. "Hey, are you okay?"
"Just fine, and are you oookaayyy?" His last word echoed throughout the
planet, and she noticed that his voice was somehow...much more sinister.
"I'm fine. Are you sick or something? Like, a sore throat? What's wrong with
your voice?" Eric quickly swallowed hard, and coughed down the droplet that
Ganondorf had given him to make his voice sound like Eric's.
"I'm fine," he answered, his voice exactly like Eric's.
"That's good, come on, Eric!" The decoy Eric made his way over to her, and
smiled briefly. She noticed that something wasn't quite the same about him.
She shrugged, figuring that she was just probably tired.
"You do know, don't you? That when you rest here, you'll rest good. I
overheard some monsters talking about it, and they weren't lying. Why don't
you rest...? You look very ill."
"I  AM ill. It's because of the Master Sword. I've got to get it
back, and until then, I have to use this little dagger," she murmured,
pulling out the Kokiri Sword. She made a little voice, and this told the
decoy that she didn't like it. "And no, I can't rest. Not until we destroy
Ganondorf. Who knows? He may catch us off guard and kill us both. I don't
want that to happen,  ever." The decoy nodded.
"As soon as she closes her eyes for the first sleep, she'll never wake up,
ever again," the decoy whispered to himself.
                    ***
"Why do you want me to rest so much, Link? You trying to kill me?" He asked
her, or what he thought was her. It was a Link decoy. The decoy tilted its
head back and laughed insanely.
"Kill you? Why...why would I do that, Your Majesty? I'm in love with you."
Eric cringed.
"You're not acting like yourself. Ever since we got back together again when
we were separated...ah ha! You're not Link!" He steadied himself, realizing
he'd just made a big mistake. The decoy probably would've waited to deliver
a blow, but now it looked like it was going to slaughter him, and he was too
nervous to grab any of his weapons. He let out a little yelp and ran off,
with the decoy in close pursuit. "I thought Princes were...supposed...to be
tough and strong!" He gasped.
             SMACK!!! The girl laying in front of him was dazed, and the big
bump on her head didn't help, either. She groaned and stood up, looking at
him. "Eric?! Wait a minute! There's two of you and--two of me!" Eric and
Link looked at their decoys. "There's no way we can last; well, there's no
way we can really tell each other apart. We've got to destroy them before we
get confused and end up killing each other." Eric nodded.
"You got the Kokiri Dagger?" She nodded.
"You need to keep the Biggoron sword for your own protection, I'll use the
pee-wee sword." She took it out, and watched as Eric defeated his decoy, and
it vanished into thin air. But now she was standing side-by-side with her
clone, and Eric looked over at them, confusedly. The same shade of hair--the
same blue shade for eyes...they were identical. Like he and his clone were.
"Link?" He asked, scanning from the real one to the clone. "Which one's you?
I'm lost." Link pointed to herself, and the decoy copied her.
"I am, Eric!" The clone cried, now calling him Eric because it had heard
Link call the Prince 'Eric.'
       "Eric, this Master Sword thing..." Link paused, feeling dizzy, but
she shook it off. "We have to find it and get the curse off of it before I
die." He nodded thoughtfully.
"You're my Link," he said, wrapping his strong, sturdy arm around her waist.
He looked over at the decoy. "And you're just scum," he murmured as he
plunged his sword into it, and it vanished into dust. With that, Eric gazed
down at her, his eyes looking deep into hers. There was something soft to
them, sincerity. They looked up at him with tears, as if she were about to
cry. With that, he passionately kissed her.
      "Eric..."
"I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself," he said faintly and quickly.
"I don't care, you know... I've been waiting for you to do that. I never
thought that you liked me..."
"You wanted me to do that?" She nodded.
"I love you, Eric."
"I love you too, Link." They both sighed and held hands.
"Things'll be different now. When we get back to Esrth, I'm going to propose
to you." She giggled.
"Hey, I love you, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for marriage yet." He nodded
thoughtfully.
"Thanks for explaining that to me. Guess I'll never get girls..." He
stumbled ahead. "Link, don't worry. I'll find that sword, and I'll find
Ganondorf. When I do...he'll wish that he was never born!" He clenched his
fists, and could feel the blood pumping less and less into his veins.
"I think I know why the clones wanted us to fall asleep here."
"You do? Why?"
"This place is the land of Nightmares. When you fall asleep, your soul goes
into a permanent rest. So, basically, you sleep forever, and you can never
wake up again. We've gotta stay awake." Eric nodded sleepily.
"If we're going to find Ganondorf, we best find him before we both end up
snoozing for an eternity."
    Eric led Link across the path. He noticed that she wasn't looking
very well at all. He propped her chin up. "Hey," he said, casting a grin
down at her. "Try to keep up and don't fall asleep. It could prove to
be fatal." Link nodded slowly, as if she were about to drift off to sleep,
but to his surprise, she didn't. "Now, we have to find Ganon's domain, and
when we do--well, you get the picture."
          "I think I see it," she grinned excitedly after a few moments, as
if death and gore were fun to see. "I want to destroy him. So no one else
has to worry about him. My grandfather had to work with him and even lose 7
years of his life and remember a horrible experience..." She paused. "Did
your grandmother and my grandfather every marry?"
"If they had, that would be.....ewe. No, they didn't, Link. Your grandfather
went to an island to help them with a problem there, but he got stuck there
for the rest of his life on criminal charges that he didn't committ. Before
then, after he had been there for 10 years before the charges, he somehow
knew he'd never see Zelda again, and he married and had a son and a
daughter. The Daughter died when she was very young, from a disease. Then
Link went to prison and later died from who knows what. The son of Link,
named Greg, married Alaina, a young, beautiful woman, after Greg moved to
Hyrule. Then Alaina became pregnant, and Greg went to war and he died within
a week. Alaina was all alone, and then she died during pregnancy, thus, you
came along, but you headed to the sweat shop in Calatia ever since you were
a small child.
          "Well, as for my grandmother? When Link left, Zelda lay by her
window day in and out for her lover's return, but he never came back. That's
when she lost all hope, and met a nice-looking suitor. She married him, and
they had a lovely daughter. She married a suitor, and those were my parents.
My mother died when I was just a small child, and...my father. Does he know
that I'm gone?"
          "Wow, pretty detailed if you ask me," Link said, stiffling a yawn.
"I'm sure he knows that you're gone, he's probably very worried, but on the
other hand, maybe the Sages told him where you went and that you're safe. As
soon as we get back to the Castle, though, expect a BBIIIIIIIIGGGGG
tongue-lashing."
"Oh, thanks, Link!" He said half-through a murmur. "That's something to look
forward to." She giggled and grinned at him. She pulled him the rest of the
way until they came to Ganon's domain.
     "He must've known that we were coming, that's why it's barricaded,"
Link pointed out. Eric nodded in agreement. "Help me, maybe together we can
open it." He smiled, glad to help her, and for once, he had found something
that she couldn't do alone. Together, they managed to get the door open, and
before them lay a red carpet.
         "Down this corridor, Link!" He dragged her down another hall that
had a purple carpet. He saw a large, golden door. "He must be in here, this
room is better decorated than any of the others." He slowly pushed it open,
and there they were, waiting for them.
       "Sooner than I expected," Said Ganon, eyeing the two suspiciously.
"Tsch..Tsch...you two won't last very long at all. My moblins will wear you
down and then when you face me, you'll be too weak to move on!" His booming
laughter rumbled through the mansion, and it sent chills up Eric's spine.
He'd never battled against something like this, the warrior was in Link, not
him.
"Ganon, you're such a weakling, yet you think you can beat Link--I mean us?
Seriously!"
"And you think you can stick it off on your little girlfriend?" Ganon
retorted, grinning evilly. "A gentleman never lays the burden on his lady's
back." He turned his back on them for a moment and fumbled around, obviously
yelling at his Moblins to get up and do their work. He couldn't be sure,
though, Ganon's words were in an entirely different language. "GO!" The
attack clearly caught the duo off-guard, but Link was quick, and she
unsheathed her sword and sliced the first one.
         Eric charged forward, caring only about his girlfriend's safety. If
anything became of her, he could never forgive himself. He slashed the first
moblin, and it let out what seemed like a laugh, but was actually a scream.
It looked like there was pain on its face, or maybe it was happiness, Eric
couldn't tell for sure, because their faces were so severely deformed. It
looked at its wound and then up at Eric. It smiled at him and he could see
its yellowish-white teeth, and his nose curled at the stench of its breath.
"Har Har Har!" It cackled, and then lashed forward with its spear, but Eric
was much more agile than the plump, little Moblin. He grinned at it.
"Miss me Miss me Now ya gotta--" It threw the spear again, this time
piercing his shoulder. "Unngghhh..." he whispered silently, and tried to
smile for Link, as if he were in no pain at all so he wouldn't distract her.
He rubbed his shoulder, and then stabbed the Moblin. He felt a little guilty
killing the poor thing, but it was for his safety, after all, it would've
gladly done it to him, too, would it not have?
         Finally, all of the moblins were gone. It was just Link, Eric, and
Ganon. "Ooh, I have a back-up of moblins, and, here they are!" A whole hord
of them came forth, about 9, and that was way too much for the novices.
"You get the moblins, I'll take Ganon on..." Link said, her voice firm.
"No way, Ladyyyyy! YOU take the moblins, and I'll take on Ganon. I can
manage, and if I don't practice, I'll never learn. You and me, sweetie, we
can destroy him, annihalate him." Eric's face lit up, as if he were happy
about all of this killing, too, or at least, happiness about restoring
peace.
"All right," Link agreed after a bit of time to think. "I'll hurry, and when
I'm done with them, I'll help you!" She raced off in the other direction to
destroy the Moblins as she'd been ordered. Eric turned back to his main
goal.
          Ganon seemed to be watching Link battle, but Eric dared not look
back, or else Ganon might stab him while he was off guard. "Not bad
looking," he said, watching her every muscle move into action. "She's
actually pretty cute. I'm sure you've got something going with her," Ganon
raised her sword and tried to bring it down, but Eric pulled out the
Biggoron Sword and blocked it, the weapons clashing together. Ganon looked
down at him, seeming a bit irritated.
         "I swear, you'll end up just like her grandfather if you keep going
in this direction, you might event turn up dead today. Sound exciting,
much?" Eric licked his lips and delivered a good blow to the stomach, but
then he made a fatal mistake. Ganon plunged his sword into the Prince's
stomach and watched as the boy tumbled to the ground, breathing his last,
just as Link managed to finish off the last of the Moblins. She looked over
and saw the limp form on the floor.
"ERIC! NOOOO!" She squealed, her voice starting to choke off with fear, and
her little blue eyes looked up to meet Ganon's big, red ones. Ganon stared
menacingly down at her. He moved over to her slowly, and then stood there,
continuing to look at her. "I don't like it when people look at me like
that," she said crossly, her eyes narrowing. "You killed my boyfriend. And
now I'm going to kill you."
          "Heh, you kill me? And end up like your 'boyfriend'?" He tilted
his head back and roared with laughter, but, just like Eric, he made his
fatal mistake. Link was quick and jammed her sword into his heart. He fell
down, dead. But now she was all alone, and her only friend in the world,
also, her only boyfriend, was dead. Suddenly, she found herself standing in
Hyrule's chill by Lake Hylia, the gray skies enveloping her and the rain
chilling her to the bone. That's when everything went black.
         TO BE CONTINUED......
         In, "The Land of the Dead"